All Together

In spite of the vicissitudes the mentally handicapped experienced, which were usually greater than with the people outside the facility, mid month at Sugar Loaf was fairly stable: morning dressing and bed making, Meds, breakfast for those who could get to the Dining Hall, exercises or crafts, mid-morning Juice Break, appointments or shopping if a vehicle was available, Meds, dinner for those who could get to the Dining Hall, mail call, crafts, mid-afternoon Juice Break, Outings or an in-house activity, Meds, supper for those who could get to the Dining Hall, TV or cards or letter-writing for those who knew how, evening Juice Break, Meds, lights out. When this structure was followed, it gave a sense of stability to everyone, even Staff. But the last and first days of most months were days of change, times when Discharges and Transfers left and times when New Arrivals sheepishly shuffled down the hall.

During mid-Winter the fewest changes occurred. The biggest influx came at the end of the calendar and fiscal year. So it was no surprise when three Admittees stood in the hall outside the Chart Room at the first of the month. What made these newcomers stand out was that they were all members of the same family.

Every institution has its own in-jokes. People outside the pale seldom hear them because they are usually appreciated only by those who speak the same esoteric vocabulary and see the joke funny under its special, in-house circumstances. I include the following tale knowing that not

everyone will think it funny, but Sugar Loaf Staff certainly did and perhaps there are enough similar-minded readers who will agree. We told and when the Ferriers arrived because they were like the characters in the story.

A Health Nurse visited the house of a family whose members were all mentally handicapped. A little girl, filthy, in rags, and veiling a disfigured face, answered.

"Little girl, is your mother home?"

"No," slurred the young one. "She's in jail for prostitution and drug addiction."

The nurse winced, but asked on. "Is your father home?"

"Oh, no," stammered the urchin. "He's in the hospital for the criminally insane."

Shaking her head futily, the nurse asked, "Well, do you have a brother? Is he home?"

The deformed child smiled proudly. "Oh, yes," she managed under her cleft palate. "He's at Harvard Medical School."

"Oh!" gasped the nurse in disbelief. "How did he ever get there?"

Toothlessly the girl slurred, "In a bottle."

Rachael Ferrier was the mother, John the son, and Frank Basco the son of Rachael's sister. John and Frank's fathers never existed: they were like wild birds who scatter seeds indiscriminately across every field and woodland, never caring where they land or if they sprout. The glory of Mary's maternal instinct was that she took the two boys under her wing. Which was a considerable task since she, like the other two, scored in the high 50's on the IQ test. This similarity of their scores proved to many the principle of family genetics, a common gene pool, and the saying that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. Still, mother Rachael scored two points

higher than the boys, so other than position and age, intellectually she did warrant the title of family leader.

Sugar Loaf Staff, as well as more than one Case Worker, was convinced that none of the three could survive on their own; it took the entire group to get by, and that only when they lived with each other so there was more imput when making decisions.

As similar as the family was in intelligence, they were, of course, noticeably different. Other than being female, Rachael had less hair than the boys combined. Everyone thought she would do well to wear a wig so she wouldn't be mistaken for a man from the back. John was so obese that the bib overalls he insisted on wearing were so stretched out at the stomach that the T-shirt that always hiked above his phenomenal gut easily showed knolls and valleys of rolling fat. And Frank: no one could miss the man with one eye aimed North while the other headed South East. Naturally there were internal differences between the relatives, but the external ones stood out so noticeably that no one could confuse the three when facing them, IQ's in hand or not.

The Ferrier family was brought to the Health Center by the police. The trio had recently been evicted from their condemned house and had no place to stay. Because they were on Welfare, Social Security, Federal Housing Assistance, Food Stamps, and any number of Titled Programs, as well as being Wards of the State, they were housed at Sugar Loaf temporarily: until the officials could find suitable housing. The three were incapable of finding decent quarters by themselves singly or as a group. A Court-Appointed official did the searching. For people in the Health Care know, the classification of Temporary is most erroneous because every mentally handicapped individual fits this group. This is because tomorrow they could be put on the Sugar Loaf Circuit and be moved to a different

facility, they could go to a Mental Health Institute for intensive care, nursing homes were always an option, and prison was a possibility for those who had missed their Meds and reverted to warped, animal behavior. It was actually the rare Resident, like T. Talbot and Abe Springer, who spent most of their lives in only one facility. Knowing that they were labeled Temporary, the more lucid Residents usually did next to nothing during their stay. They avoided learning how to read or write. They did not volunteer to work in the garden or shovel the walks. This attitude was augmented by the knowledge that the State was footing the bill. In time, it made the mentally challenged completely dependent both financially and psychologically. The Ferriers were prime examples of Government-Program dependency.

When I met Rachael, John, and Frank, I was impressed by their family cohesiveness. That they couldn't function without each other didn't bother me. In fact, I found it fascinating that the three had perfected the old business-partner tactic of one always absent so the other couldn't make a decision. When the Ferriers sensed there was a reason to oppose a policy, even though they were all together so couldn't use this strategy, they intuitively applied a different method to put you off: they demanded a private, Family Council to discuss the matter. In these meetings, the three pooled their respective minds and slowly came to a decision. If you ever wanted to be certain of getting no decision from them, just tell them they were required to make a decision separately. Their sense of group survival balked so successfully that they ALWAYS found a way to council. The Ferriers would have made an excellent source for a field anthropologist studying group coherence in a primitive tribe.

It is not uncommon to find strong camaraderie and bonding among Health Care Residents: some know they can't make it as individuals so

gather together like birds of a feather. Others, like Lane Parsons, were deluded enough to think they could not only survive by themselves but were master lone wolves. But the Ferriers had an advantage over all of them: they were bonded not only by mental deficiency but also by blood. And that meant that when they needed support, it was always there.

In time, near-tragedy struck the group: the Court Official found housing at the same time that Rachael needed an operation on her foot. So the family was split. For three months Rachael stayed at Sugar Loaf while the boys took residence in the mobile home at the trailer park south of town. The separation was bad enough because John and Frank didn't know how to feed themselves and nearly starved, but made worse because every time they left their trailer they got lost because to them every unit looked exactly like every other. Rachael fared no better when she faced the Sugar Loaf life with no family support.

The transition time was usually a trying time for all, but my notes tell me that in time, all ended happily with the Ferriers. For finally sparse-haired Rachael, big-bibbed John, and weird-eyed Frank finally huddled in the back of the police car to go to a new home. Together. Truthfully the only way the three could function successfully.