Perfect Roommates

About mid-career I came in contact with several Residents who impressed me enough to record in my Journal. Two neared fifty and seemed to be connected at a deep level. There were certain surface similarities between them, but they were so incidental they never eclipsed their deeper tie.

In the third grade Barney was a handsome, healthy, energetic, normal boy with wavy hair and an impish smile. Like all boys he accepted all dares. And, like his friends, he pulled off fetes with bravado, for no one demanded an unaccomplishable dare. But at the end of recess when he was full of success and carelessness, he dashed into school and slipped on the top step. By the time he reached the bottom, Barney's life was changed forever. The damaged brain and nervous system arrested his ability to learn, to speak, even to walk without a noticeable limp.

Paul, on the other hand, was born, as the Med Aides joked, with his wires crossed. His neuro-pathways and nerve endings simply didn't operate according to the rules. They seemed to take off in directions that fit their fancy, his synapses never firing like his fellow Homo Sapiens'. The result was that this friendly soul bobbed forward like a weather vane in perpetual motion. Also, Paul's mind could never grasp and hold a number beyond four. He was a whiz with one, two, three, and a bit wobbly with four, but past that everything was a jumble. How many times I flashed cards for him to identify and he snapped back with 1, 2, 3, and 4, but after

absently tossed off twenty-nine, two thousand, or six. Paul was a joy to be around because, like Barney, he was as simple and harmless as the day was long. He was just not the person you'd give your 1040 to and expect a grand refund.

I learned from their files that the two gentlemen had been roommates for over thirty years in the various institutions they'd shared. Similar in functioning and ease of being cared for, Barney and Paul got along splendidly and communicated satisfactorily on that non-language level that many brain-damaged individuals do. That was what their common and deep bond, the level that more intellectually gifted Residents lacked. For without speaking, or even gesturing, each seemed to present the other with the other's needs at the right moment. Whether a pillow or jacket or pair of sox, it's as if they'd been married to each other for fifty years and knew the other inside and out.

It's also true that the two were inseparable. Because of their apparent similarities and ease in getting along, they were not only roommates but ate at the same table, sat next to each other on Outings, watched TV together, and were partners at potato-bag races and the wheelbarrow chase. It surprised no one, then, when a demented Resident attacked Paul with a screw driver that Barney spontaneously came to his defense.

The culprit should have know better. Maybe he did. Maybe at his deep level he knew that no one dealt with one roommate without having to answer to the other. But on the surface, the attack was whisped away with the facility truism, "They're here for a reason." Because when the screw driver went up and down, Barney's adrenaline only went up. Barney was incapable to think out what he was witnessing, he only knew it was wrong and that he had to do something. Biblically, Barney was the answer to Cain: YouAREyour brother's keeper. The result was that the

attacker not only spent some time in the hospital, but considerably longer in one for the criminally insane.

Barney had two great accomplishments. One, he could sort out a deck of cards so the same denomination of the four suits proudly sat together. The man's impish smile filled the entire room when he proudly displayed his hour-long fete. Stacked as neatly as any accountant could line up a column of numbers, Barney, his eyes not quite in line and his ears jutting out like he had two pairs of earmuffs on, would beam as if he'd created the light bulb, invented TV, and the Theory of Relativity all in the same breath. Watching him gloat was one of my great joys at Sugar Loaf Health Center.

Barney's other accomplishment was that whenever the group took an Outing, he was given the responsibility of the plastic-webbed milk box that carried everyone's sack lunch. When he concentrated as well as he did at cards, he could shuffle just about anywhere without spilling a thing. And since he carried the box on one hip, it balanced the starboard list caused by his short leg, which meant that you couldn't tell he had a limp. Barney owned the milk box, and woe to the person who foolishly or even inadvertently usurped the keeper's responsibility. I swear that the pride that the brain-damaged, simple man exhibited made the angels sing.

One of Paul's peculiarities was not only did he bob continuously, but unlike his eternal roommate, never quit jabbering. I don't need to refer to my notes to remember how this bothered Staff. If his words followed any logical order, pattern, or reason, he might have become an author or playwright or stand-up comedian. But they didn't. Not a word the man uttered had any relation whatsoever to its predecessor or follower. I am convinced that such a conglomeration of words could be achieved by randomly picking entries from a dictionary or Thesaurus. In fact, that was

Paul's genius --- if it could be said that he possessed one --- that he spoke fluently, yet none of the flow had any meaning. Synapses fired at complete random. His monologues were nothing more than a series of words with no connection whatever. A linguistic genius couldn't have created a better series of non-sense. So entertaining was Paul that more than one Resident pulled up a chair to watch him bob forward and backward and jabber non-stop. Paul was a joy to all who didn't care for meaning.

The peculiar aspect of their relationship was that Barney and Paul never spoke to each other. Yet their every gesture suggested that they did communicate. It was just on such a simple, subtle level that neither you nor I could catch it. They were perfect roommates.