The Catalogue Man

I noticed an interesting thing at Sugar Loaf: often the mentally handicapped sees his territory and perception of the world far differently from the rest of us. This is not only true of the Resident who can't read, write, or know his numbers, but especially noticeable in those who have been kept away from society. These people, whose surroundings are already restricted, never become social, often never learn how to deal with anyone but themselves and a maybe a guardian or Case Worker. Because of this, their view of the world is very self-centered.

Talking to Jerry Closter is an excellent case in point. I noticed that whenever anyone speaking with Jerry made a generalization, spoke in the abstract, or used symbols or metaphors he was unfamiliar with, he would ignore the person as if he were speaking a foreign language. In other words, Jerry could deal only with the immediate, what was concrete, what was staring him in the face. Anything beyond the physical was beyond his reality and therefore beyond his comprehension.

The odd twist in all this was how Jerry related to clothes and catalogues. He could leaf through hundreds of pages of Pennys or Sears for hours as if he were in a store and trying the many wardrobes on himself. So real were his visual trips through the paper stores that he thought nothing of making out a thousand-dollar order and dropping it in the mail box. To him, who had no sense of money either, a card or a number was the easiest thing to put at the bottom of an order form. And

with such a simple thing he could get all the clothes he wanted!

Everything went well once Staff established and enforced what became the Closter Rule: that Residents couldn't order things unless the purchases were monitored, namely that they needed the items and had the money to pay for them. Before Jerry, all sorts of strange items were delivered at Sugar Loaf's doorsteps. Everything from a sailboat to twelve gross of condoms and a gross of toilet paper. As long as an enterprising Resident had acquired a credit card number and knew how to fill out an order form, the sky was the limit. It was when Staff noticed piles, drawerfulls, and closet-bulging wardrobes occupying half the space in Jerry C's room that the whole matter of ordering through catalogues was investigated. Sugar Loaf, the credit card companies, and many clothing stores thank Jerry Closter for exposing a policy that was being fully abused by many people throughout the country.

But even after the mess was straightened out, Jerry still gazed at his catalogues and made mock orders. For in his mind there was no difference between buying indiscriminately then and being more selective now, except that now the cleaning lady could get around the edge of the bed or not fear being buried alive when she opened his closet. Still he got every new catalogue he could: one whole dresser drawer was full of exotic brochures that catered to the catalogue-compulsive: some featured knickknacks from Nicaragua, ivory-tipped spears from Africa, Eskimo blubber to keep you warm during cold nights, even shark teeth from the South Pacific. Everyone was thankful that Jerry wasn't interested in such exotic collectibles: we all felt happy that his fetish was mere clothes.

Having been raised by a frugal mentality, one day I let my guard down and asked the Resident why he ordered so many clothes. I should not have done this, of course, because it violated the cardinal rule of never entering

the reality of the mentally diseased. But from my point of view --- you bought things only when you needed them and only when you could afford them --- I simply had to know what prompted him. His answer threw me and drew me farther into his paradigm.

"Because they're clothes."

My blank stare encouraged him.

"I need clothes."

I couldn't argue with that.

"They are nice."

Luckily I caught myself in time: I realized that his paradigm and mine were not only different, but could never walk in unison.

What interested me through the months was that even though the new policy, the Closter Rule, was in effect, and deliveries were no longer made nor closets overburst, Jerry continued to fill out order after order whenever he got a new catalogue. It was this fixation that helped me understand the nature of alternate realities and compulsive behavior.

As it turned out, Jerry Closter didn't care how many or what kind of clothes he owned. Or how many deliveries came to Sugar Loaf in his name. His thrills came from seeing pictures in catalogues, sensing he owned whatever he saw, and feeling fulfilled by filling an order form. This unique approach was, as Staff said repeatedly, the reason Jerry Closter, the Catalogue Man, was at Sugar Loaf Health Center.