Let's just say it was an artistic success. One reason for that was writer/poet/musician/
performance artist David Franks.
He wrote four stories for us, stories that could have run in the New Yorker.
This was the fourth story he wrote for us, the first being on a job he had as a phone psychic. The second was part 1 of this story. Find it here. Here is part 2.
This is from the August 1991 issue, Issue #4.
All of the capitalization and punctuation and spacing are David's.
That incarnation of HARRY lasted only 6 memorable months. David died at age 61 in 2010 in his Fell's Point apartment. He was working on several projects at the time.
I was the Editor-in-Chief of HARRY at the time he wrote these. This is the first of four, meant to be read in order. I'm very happy to bring these back to life. I wish I could do the same for David.
-----Tom D'Antoni
By DAVID FRANKS //
I tell stories & some of them are true.
Everyone in the Psychiatric Hospital is crazy:
There are no sane people left on the Planet, only Earthlings that remain undiagnosed:
Sophocles merely confirms the western notion of the Motherfucker (classical):
All psychiatrists are motherfuckers (colloquial):
Do I hear a second opinion?
These are my thoughts two weeks into the Mad House:
Perhaps they are merely warped by the ghoulishness of my disease?
Motherfucker? What is this? Really. Really. Really.
But what else?
IT IS THAT NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE & especially because of it, that by the time you reach this pass you know you have become an angel. Lucifer. The Angel of Light cast into what seems like utter darkness. But somewhere there is the memory -- even here in a Mad House. You have seen the light & you want to live in it:
LIKE ANY OTHER ALKI OR JUNKIE through with denial, I was beaten down into the dark. No family. No future. No measurable earthly riches. Spiritually bankrupt:
& you arrive at this place, with this psychiatrist, saying
"Lay me out in lines & snort my dust!"
THERE IS NO SECRERT, no shame that will not be freely given, if only they will restore your spirit:
WITHIN LESS THAN HALF A CENTURY, our society has invested in these Earthlings with so much power, this relationship with so much power, this relationship with so much hope that within a very short time we must often routinely reveal more to this person than we dare to reveal to our mates in a lifetime. Such is the state of our desperation. Such is our desire for resurrection:
"Lay me out in lines & snort my dust!"
& when the lines are laid out & blown to the wind?
"MOTHERFUCKER"
I ENTERED THE MAD HOUSE Christmas Eve with the help of three friends -- drunks get heavy. My intent was not simply to get sober, but to find a possible way to live my life without the bottle as my constant companion. Thanks to the substance abuse counselors & nurses at Sheppard Pratt (many of whom are recovering alkis & junkies) & A.A. (my new constant companion) I now possess a serenity that no one can touch -- that I can give away if I want to.
But two weeks into the Mad House be a different story Bubba:
TWO WEEKS INTO THE BIN, I'm told that I now possess two life-long mental illnesses as my constant companions. Two diseases so debilitating that I cannot possibly work in the near future if ever again -- even sober. The obvious question is:
IF THESE TWO CONDITIONS HAVE BEEN PRESENT all my working life -- what have I been doing working? It's enough to give a poor boy the willies. Go figure.
I FIGURE I SHOULD REQUEST AN AUDIENCE with the psychiatrist. I write her a letter as I do most every night from then on requesting this audience, an explanation of the diagnoses, & a second opinion. Moreover, I seem to be reacting badly to the major medications I am taking for bi-polar disorder:
DURING GROUP THERAPY, I routinely fall off of chairs --mostly into the laps of the drooling psychotics (thorazine, haldol et al.) where I promptly fall asleep.
ALSO MY SHORT-TERM MEMORY is now almost completely shot. In the morning, I go to the bathroom with a bar of soap & have to go back for a towel. I go back for a towel & have to go back for a toothbrush. I got back for toothpaste etc.etc. until even the M.R./schizoids catch on & hide my stuff in glee.
IN THE MORNING, the psychiatrist asks me how I'm feeling & I routinely answer, "My short-term --------," "My short-term --------," "My short-term--------" --- "is," "is"," "is" ---- & fall off my chair hoping the arch softness of my psychiatrists' Freudian lap will interrupt my fall before I settle in for a morning nap. Clearly my thinking is becoming somewhat inappropriate:
I do not drool.
Suddenly. Nothing.
AS MY MEDICATIONS ZOOM past therapeutic the situation becomes increasingly bizarre. I'm aware that I'm the self-sabotaging buffoon but have no mind left to say anything at all. With all the world as I have it is going crazy around me, I try to do the regular thing, but in a Mad House the touchstones become flimsy:
WILLIE LEE. Still psychotic/alki/junki. Changes clothes 16 times today & presents himself at the Nurses' Station with empty threats of flight. Without proper notification (at least Three days) & permission, he will not be considered. Besides, he's Medical Assistance -- where's he going to go? This daily acting out is symbolic & he knows it. He does the "thorazine shuffle" -- my friend Root Boy brought me some of his tapes during a visit -- & commences "dozin' n' droolin': in bed:
WALTER. Still M.R./affective schizophrenic/junkie. Cain't read or write too well, nor can he play the guitar just like ringin'a bell. In telling gesture, he is unanimously elected President of our group & greets already baffled new-comers with "Welcome to A-7, I'm the President.":
MICHELLE. The trial attorney. Still alki/junkie/paranoid schizophrenic & fresh from two Hazeldens & Betty Ford. Michelle, who has "walked with Kings," now comes after me with hot irons & lamps because she is convinced I'm out to murder her ---
ISOLATION ROOM
THE ISOLATION ROOM is reserved for those of us whose behavior becomes evidently dangerous to ourselves or others:
EILEEN Bi-polar/mixed personality disorder/alki/junkie. Eileen's sent there for acting out sexually in the laundry with Mike. Mike is a truck driver who likes to drive high on "greens" (PCP), & is as yet undiagnosed. "She cleaned my clothes, then cleaned my pipes!" he chortles to everyone in particular:
HOWEVER, IT IS PERHAPS JOHN AND PAUL who are sent most frequently to the Isolation Room. Both have suicidal tendencies & tend to "act out." In either case, however, it is hard to tell just who is being sent to the Isolation Room when either of them is -- both are straight M.P. (multiple personalities for the undiagnosed among you):
JOHN & HIS "ALTERS" are one of my room-mates. Mostly John becomes suicidal when his girlfriend "Emily," who is herself an M.P. & resides in the straight psychiatric unit across the hall, resists romantic overtures during visiting hours:
JOHN IS FORCED TO BEAR with many of Emily's alters in order to get through to Emily. Most often he confides in me, he must go through Hector, a homophobic cook at Tio Pepe's; Rachel, a covetous lesbian who is into rubber fetishes; & Clarence, a handkerchief-headed, biscuit-eatin' Uncle Tomm Supreme Court Justice before he can possibly hold court with his beloved.
OFTEN THE QUEST becomes a bit too rigorous for John & he acts like any other troubador by wanting to "rip off his head":
ISOLATION ROOM
PAUL, THE OTHER M.P. IS NOT IN LOVE. He is married to one person. An alki/junkie/pharmacist -- a commoner by comparison.
PAUL ACTS OUT MOST OFTEN by trying to cut on his right forearm with whatever resembles a knife. Since he is an artist, I suggest he get with it & formalize the process with tattoos. We become friends:
AFTER MY RELEASE (MORE LATER) Paul comes over to visit, "I've just passed Cybill," Paul announces and walks through the entrance to my manse.
PAUL, HIMSELF, IS BLONDE & HANDSOME in that Michael Thomas sort of way. He dresses in Sunny's Surplus black with a lot of black canvas bags & belts.
Paul wants to go shopping for his alters:
FIRST, WE GO OVER TO THE KARMIC CONNECTION to find "something in green" for "Ravi" who is "Paul's best friend from the mountains." Next we are on our way to a hair styling place on Aliceanna called "Bang! Bang!" to arrange a cut for Laura Lands:
LAURA LANDS IS ANOTHER OF PAUL'S ALTERS. She is I'm told an "exquisite woman in both body and soul -- though she tires easily." We are then off to Venus Envy on South Broadway to shop for Laura Lands. Paul who wears a 42 long, as I do, insists on size 7 dresses for his alter Laura & brings them back into the dressing room to try them on.
AT THIS POINT, I tell Paul that we must have high-tea at Bertha's for Laura real soon & free-basing for Paul never again. I walk over to Jimmy's & have a power-lunch for old commoner alki me, myself & I:
I do not drool:
Suddenly. Nothing.
ONCE UPON A TIME there lived in Lutherville an old baker who had the ambition to take up Creation of the World where God had left off:
GOD HAD LEFT CREATION in its natural phase. The baker, however, intended to eliminate such spontaneity so as to make the world more intelligible:
SO THE OLD BAKER chose Reinforced Concrete for Creation, because it represented a fixed mental state -- "concrete" as opposed to abstract:
CONCRETE FURNITURE, CHAIRS, DRAWERS, concrete sewing machines, and outside in the courtyard, an entire orchestra, including violins of concrete -- all concrete!! Concrete trees with real leaves printed into them, a hog made out of reinforced concrete, but with a real hog's skull inside:
ASIDE FROM THE BENIGN & BENEFICENT sense of humor, the old baker & the psychiatrists have much in common:
LIKE THE BAKER, the psychiatrists had taken abstract states & given them the appearance of concrete reality:
Blue Cross/Blue Shield was satisfied:
Everyone in the Psychiatric Hospital was crazy:
STILL NOTHING WAS AS IT APPEARED to be even though by this time I had accepted it:
I HAD ACCEPTED MY NEW LIFE-LONG diagnoses. My Sheppard Pratt psychiatrist refused to take me off medication. To do so would have invalidated the plan of treatment & the money from the Blues would have stopped. In response to my appeals, she looked at me with no nonsense eyes & said simply:
"You worry too much about labels."
A WEEK LATER, AFTER MY RELEASE, I entered The Johns Hopkins Psychiatric Outpatient Unit where my diagnoses were reversed in forty minutes:
"DOES THIS MEAN I'M NOT MENTALLY ILL anymore?" I asked. "That I haven't been mentally ill my whole life? Shouldn't you at least consult with the psychiatrist who has been observing me for the past forty days?"
THE PSYCHIATRIST FROM HOPKINS looked at me with his no nonsense eyes and said simply:
"You worry too much about labels."
