Banjo Boy

Because we're not overdoing ourselves with medical terminology but being safe with the vernacular, it's easy to say that many of the Sugar Loaf Residents had their wires crossed. It was their reason for being there. And because their mental spark plugs fired sporadically, naturally they functioned erratically. And because of that, many could not be depended upon to be responsible enough to complete regular chores . A Med Aide was assigned to walk the halls every hour on the hour to check for faucets splashing, toilets gurgling, wind whistling through open windows, and a myriad of other sounds that should not be occurring inside facility rooms. It is because of this behavior that many Residents could not live in town: what if they left the stove on or forgot to turn the bathtub off?

This was prominent in one Resident I remember well, Sabastian Purcell, Light Socket Gal's sixteen-time fiancé. Sabastian had been a solid, dependable farm boy all his youth. Closing in on voting age, he was expected to take over the family acreage and would most likely add a mechanic shop to keep him busy during the winter months. He had a mechanical mind, was very dexterous when working with details. Sabastian was the pride and hope of the Purcell line, destined to bring great credit to the profession of farming and rural entrepreneurship. But one day during hay season he inexplicably fell off the tractor. Whether a deranged brain caused the fall or the bang on his head produced permanent brain damage, the result was the same: his life changed

Brain damage is a mysterious thing. Football players can take whack after bone-crunching whack to the head and every other body part and live successfully. Scores of people have fallen out of trees, off garage roofs, or down hay shutes, gotten up and scratched their heads, dusted their overalls, and continued working. But it's also the case that one single blow to the skull, or even a well-aimed tap, can change a man into a vegetable for life. Such was the case with Sabastian Purcel.

Having worked at the Health Center for parts of five decades, I've noticed that brain damage can manifest in many different ways. One individual can be blinded, another crippled, while a third might become mute. There are so many variations on the brain damage theme that health professionals must observe closely and deal with every case separately. In Sabastian's case, he primarily heard voices and became convinced they came from real people. So real that he felt compelled to act on what he heard.

Mr. Purcel's voices were silent most of the time, and as long as he took his medication regularly, even when they said otherwise, they didn't dominate him; they were just suggestive. Like most of Sugar Loaf's Residents, however, the single greatest cause of dysfunction was skipping Meds for whatever reason. Consequently, the Med Time ritual was adhered to closely, each dose monitored closely by an Aide. This minimized most eruptions, but the human neurophysiology is complex and doesn't always react ritualistically. The result is that erratic behavior is almost expected, and that's why Residents are often seen mumbling to themselves, carrying on heated dialogues with invisible debaters, while most of the time they are as silent as clams. Interestingly, in Sebastian's case, most of his incidents didn't occur during Med Time but during a full

My Journal reminds me of the time he stumbled, wild-eyed, into my office. "Sir, sir," he slurred, "I have to go to the mall."

"Why's that, Sebastian?" I asked guardedly.

"I have to get a gross of toilet paper."

Had he been functioning normally I might have quipped, "And it'll really be gross if you don't get the toilet paper, right?" But I didn't need to, because he beat me to it.

"Saint Peter told me to get a gross of toilet paper because I'm going to get diarrhea."

It doesn't take long to realize that when the wires get crossed, it's futile to converse with a Resident as if he were normal. To mention that a gross is twelve dozen or one hundred-forty-four rolls, and the average person uses a roll a week, therefore the quantity his voice instructed him to get could last almost three years. And even if he had a case of diarrhea that required the use of all those rolls quickly, he probably wouldn't survive the flood anyway. I diverted his mind.

Just before Sebastian entered my office I had been humming, "Oh, Suzanna, oh don't you cry for me...," so when I heard the unusual request, I quickly said BANJO. It stopped Sebastian dead in his tracks. Naturally he thought I was going to get involved in his toilet paper reality. The introduction of the musical instrument, whether it was on my knee or anywhere else, simply didn't fit into his paradigm.

"What?" he stammered.

"Come on, Sebastian," I said. "I bet a guy as talented as you MUST have played an instrument at SOME time. Maybe even a banjo?"

Fortunately Saint Peter wasn't demanding to be heard just then, so the Resident could even distract himself.

"Well, yes. When I was at Tech School learning farm machinery, I had a banjo and could pick my way through most of the common songs."

"I knew it," I lied. "You just LOOK like a banjo picker." That's all it took to get his mind off Saint Peter, diarrhea, and his gross gross completely. It also began a reenlivenment of his earlier days, for within a week Sabastian Purcel sat in his room picking, plucking, and strumming as if he'd never left the instrument. And as it turned out, the focus on music and the necessary technical skills acted as excellent therapy, because it was six to eight months before he heard another inner voice.

But the banjo did more than divert Sabastian. It offered many opportunities to use his refound talent. He played at everyone's birthday, at every holiday, and regularly serenaded the Light Socket Gal, Marilou. To be sure, the halls of Sugar Loaf Health Center were never the same until the day the man presented himself at the front door saying that Saint Peter had instructed him to go on tour and give the proceeds to Viet Nam orphans. How we distracted him from that one is a story in itself, but some wire got crossed just wrong enough that from that moment on he never played the banjo again. He walked around his room as if on tour.

The longer I stayed at Sugar Loaf the more I came to realize that the only thing you can expect with brain-damaged individuals is the unexpected. More than one time I hoped that Sabastian's voices would direct him back to the banjo, but it never happened. Fortunately, though, Saint Peter seemed to have forgotten his directive to pack in a supply of toilet paper. I learned to be thankful for little things, too.