Chapter 6
From Conjure Men: My Work With Ezawa at Tulane by Anthony Edman, MD, PhD.
… It was as close as I have ever come to striking a colleague, but Brauer - in his capacity of ambitious underling, thirsting for authority - seemed determined to make a case for my bungling the interaction, allowing the patients too much leeway, and my temper frayed. I forced myself to calm, however, and reminded him that we had achieved exactly the desired result: despite Magnusson’s unexpected outburst, or because of it, we had brought the patients’ fear of one another into the open where it could be treated with and analyzed.
‘Within a week they’ll be forming associations,’ I told him. ‘Monroe and French are obvious, Harrison and Richmond… Now that Richmond’s found someone who’ll face up to him, someone more or less his own age, he’s bound to make friendly overtures. It’s inevitable. Perhaps we’ve suffered a few flesh wounds, but now they’ll have to accept their fear as a side effect of the process and deal with it.’
My show of unruffled confidence bolstered staff morale, and, in effect, dismasted Brauer who continued his outraged sputterings, but to no avail. I explained to staff that our loss of control only added authenticity to the proceedings. Had we not, I asked them, reacted in the manner of concerned medical personnel, of doctors responsible for the welfare of patients making a difficult mental adjustment? We had shown them our humanity, our imperfect compassion. I admitted my own loss of control was, like theirs, a response to the possibility that the patients might understand their true natures; still, I felt that any damage caused by our actions or by Magnusson’s could be turned to our advantage if we did not attempt a cover-up, if we allowed Magnusson to remain at Shadows, and not - as Brauer suggested - hide him from the world in a cell at Tulane. Let him say what he will, I advised, and we will simply put on a sad face and express pity over his senility, his general deterioration. We will be believed.
Of course, it did not prove necessary to debunk Magnusson; just as Ramsburgh had defended herself, so the patients - in defense of their threatened identities -arrived at this conclusion on their own, separate and unanimously.
We had taken a vast step forward as a result of the group interaction. The patients began to speak openly of their fearful reaction to one another, and we analyzed their reports, gaining further insights into the extent of their perceptual abnormalities. For example, it was during the period immediately following the interaction that Harrison revealed the fact he was seeing bioenergy: ‘… Raw mists of a single color sheathing the upper body, showing patches and glints of secondary colors, all fading in a matter of seconds.’ His perceptions, in particular, gave me cause to ponder Magnusson’s pronouncement concerning my own illness, though at the time I assumed his diagnosis to be a vindictive rather than an accurate one. But while such insights provided clues to the developmental processes of these phenomenal strangers who were the BIAP patients, they shed no direct light upon the essential mystery of their existence; and the illumination of this mystery must be, I felt, the primary goal of the project. So, instead of pursuing a hands-off policy in the wake of Magnusson’s revelations to the group, I continued as planned to set up problematic situations which would, I hoped, stimulate the patients to more profound depths of self-discovery.
Throughout the hullabaloo which eventuated after the media’s disclosure of the project, my detractors have labeled me a manipulator, and while I do not accept the term with its overtones of maleficence, I submit that all psychotherapy is manipulation; that as psychiatrists we do not heal people, but manipulate their neuroses into functional modes. Any psychiatrist worth his salt is at heart a sophist who understands he is lost in a great darkness and who utilizes theories not as doctrinal cant, but as guideposts to mark the places he has illumined in his dealings with specific patients. Thus, also, did ancient alchemists incise their alembics with arcane symbols representing the known elements. I have been accused of ruthlessly swaying the courses of lives to satisfy my academic whimsies. This charge I deny. I maneuvred both patients and therapists as would a man lost in a forest strike flint and steel together to make a light. And we were lost. Before my arrival the project had an unblemished record of failure in every area, especially as regards the unraveling of the patients’ intrinsic natures. This memoir is not the proper framework in which to detail all we did unravel after my arrival, but I must point out the various papers and monographs of my detractors as evidence of my successes (the more scholarly reader may wish to avail himself of my own soon-to-be-published The Second Death and its speculative companion, Departed Souls: A Psychoanalytic Reassessment of Animist Beliefs).
My detractors have addressed with especial venom what one of them has termed my ‘unprofessional obsession with Jocundra Verret,’ and have laid the blame for all consequent tragedy at my feet. In this I admit to some complicity, yet if I am to shoulder the blame, then surely I must take credit for all that has been gained. While I do not discount my colleagues’ responsibility, and while Ms Verret herself has testified that she acted for reasons of her own, if they are insistent I will accept full blame and credit, and leave history to confer final judgement on the worth of my contribution. Yes, I took chances! I flew by the seat of my pants. I was willing for all hell to break loose in order to learn the patients’ secrets, and perhaps a measure of hell was necessary for the truth to emerge. We were cartographers, not healers; it was our duty to explore the wilderness of this new human preserve, and I could not accept as Brauer seemingly could, my role as being merely that of babysitter to the undead.
Though my case study of the relationship between Harrison and Verret - and never has a courtship been so thoroughly documented as theirs, recorded on videotape and footnoted by in-depth interviews of the participants -though this study revealed much of value, as the weeks passed I came to regard the relationship primarily as a star by which I navigated, one whose unwavering light signaled the Tightness of my course. This may seem an overly romantic attitude for a member of my profession to hold, and perhaps it was, but I believe I can justify having held it in terms of my own emotional needs. The pressures on me were enormous, and I was only able to cope with them by commuting to and from New Orleans on the weekends and spending the nights in my own home. Project officials screamed for results, my colleagues continually questioned my concern for the patients’ well-being. My concern? Because I refused to indulge in banal Freudian dissections and quasi-metaphysical coffee klatches with these second-rate theoreticians, did I lack concern? I stimulated the patients, encouraged them, tried to provide them with a pride in their occupations. Should I, instead, have pampered them, patted them on the head and admired the fact that they actually breathed? This was Ezawa’s attitude: having made them, he was well pleased, looking upon them as mere monumentsto his cleverness.
But, of course, the greatest pressure was that exerted by the patients themselves. Imagine, if you will, indwelling with a group of brilliant and charismatic individuals, thoroughly dominant, whose vivid character suppresses and dulls your own. It was a constant strain to be around them; I cannot think of a single person who did not suffer a severe depression at some time or another as a result. They were mesmeric figures: green-eyed monsters with the capacities of angels. Harrison’s poems, Monroe’s ballet, even Richmond’s howled dirge… these were powerful expressions, dispiriting to those of us incapable of emulating them, especially dispiriting because of the wan light their productions appeared to shed on the nature of creativity, demystifying it, relegating it to something on the order of a technological twitch, like the galvanic response of a dissected frog. And yet neither could we totally disabuse ourselves of mystical notions concerning the patients. At times it seemed to me that we were a strange monastic order committed to the care and feeding of crippled, green-eyed saints whose least pronouncement sent us running to examine the entrails for proof of their prophetic insight. All the therapists stood in awe of them, or - as did Laura Petit - maintained an artifi
cial distance; all, that is, except Jocundra Verret.
Watching Verret and Harrison, observing the relaxed attitude they had adopted with each other, their reponses increasingly warm and genuine, I felt I was witnessing the emergence of some integral shape from the chaotic sphere of Shadows: a sweet, frail truth which - despite its frailty - underlies our humanity. Always a beautiful woman, Verret grew ever more beautiful; her skin glowed, her hair shone and her walk - previously somnolent, head down, arms barely aswing - grew sprightly and girlish. I often pointed out to her during our sessions that she -every bit as much as the residual RNA - was a determining factor in Harrison’s personality, that just as the mama loi identifies the possessing spirit in a voodoo rite, so she was ‘identifying’ Harrison, evoking the particular complex of his behaviors to conform with her own needs. He was, after all, trying to please her, molding himself to suit her requirements as a man. Given Harrison’s perceptual abilities, his concentrated focus upon her, it is likely he was being influenced by her on levels we can only begin to guess at, and the extent of her influence is equally unfathomable. She preferred, however, to downplay her role of creatrix, insisting he was something more mysterious and self-determining. I am certain she did not know what was happening, not at first, hiding her feelings behind the pose of duty.
Although I had detected this potential in Verret at our initial meeting, still it dazzled me that love could arise between two such ill-matched individuals and under such intimidating circumstances. Their relationship provided a breath of normalcy amidst the abnormal atmosphere of Shadows, one which I inhaled deeply, rising to it as a miner trapped in a gas-filled tunnel would lift his head at the scent of fresh air. I became more and more interested to learn how far this affair might progress, interested to the point of adding my own thread to the tapestry they were weaving.
Manipulate? Yes, I manipulated. And despite the ensuing events, I would do so again, for it is the function of psychiatry to encourage the living to live, and thus did I encourage Harrison and Verret.
One day, while lunching in the commissary, I was joined by Laura Petit and Audrey Beamon. Petit had with her a Tarot deck and proceeded to tell Beamon’s fortune, and, thereafter, insisted on telling mine. I chose the Hierophant as my significator, cut the cards and listened as Laura interpreted their meanings. I could see the cards were ordinary, showing no pattern; I had not concentrated during the shuffle or the cut. Laura was not aware of my familiarity with the Tarot and therefore did not realize I learned more of her character from the reading than of my fate. Punctuating her delivery with ‘Oh dears’ and ‘Now, wait a minutes,’ she twisted the meanings of the cards, telling me a glittering tale of my future - fame after struggle - and told me also by the flattering, insinuating nature of her interpretation that here was a clever ally whom I could entrust with any mission, no matter how underhanded. Afterwards, she laid a card face up on the table: the Devil, a great, shaggy, horned figure crouched on a black stone to which a naked man and woman were chained. ‘I really think you should have chosen this as your significator, Dr Edman,’ she said, fluttering her lashes and giggling. Despite the apparent triviality of the comment, her identification of me with this awesome masculine figure, this cruel master, signaled her willingness to enlist in my cause, to submit, and, as well, displayed her sly delight in what she presumed we were really doing: all the subterfuge and nastiness of the project. All right, I thought, if I am to be Satan, then Laura will be my imp. I would put her simpering guile to use. And I did, though I am certain my manipulation was not the sole casual agent of the affair.
The character and climate of Shadows, no doubt, exerted an influence on my actions. This great manor house glooming on the edge of the swamp amid sentinel oaks and penitential moss, inhabited by dead men come to life again… here were both magical setting and characters, the stuff from which great drama arises, and perhaps, unconsciously, I was trying to spark such a drama, obeying the commands of some inner theatricality which the house had stirred in my depths, my ‘deep consciousness.’ Perhaps, were I to be injected with the Ezawa bacterium after death, I might well reincarnate as a playwright. But each morning before rounds as I took my constitutional, I would look back at the house and experience a thrill of excitement and fear. From a distance its windows appeared dead black as if it contained not furniture and walls and lives, but only a ripe and contaminating darkness. We inhabited that darkness, and I alone of all the project dared strike matches and dispel the gloom. Most of my colleagues, I believe, feared what would be revealed and satisfied themselves with behavioral studies. But this was an experiment, not a behavioral clinic; we were there to learn, not to footnote extant knowledge. And what did we learn? We uncovered new forces, we took a step along what may be an endless path towards divinity, we redirected the entire thrust of psychoanalytic theory, and, as with all knowledge, we found that deeper and more compelling mysteries yet lay beyond those we had reduced to the security of fact.
Chapter 7
April 18 - May 3, 1987
‘You should come on a run with me sometime,’ said Richmond; he lay back, arms behind his head, and pondered the passing clouds. ‘Cruisin’ through some half-ass town, pullin’ up to the fountain in the park or whatever they got for a public eyesore. ‘Bout forty or fifty of you. The cops ain’t to be found, man. You know, they got sudden problems out on the highway, and you are in control of the situation. That’s when the ladies will do some flockin’ around. The ladies dig on a Harley, man! They wanna run their fingers ‘long your gas tank, you understand?’
‘Uh huh,’ said Donnell, too exhausted to do more than listen to Richmond. He had managed to walk almost a hundred yards, and as a result his legs trembled, his chest hammered, and sweat was trickling into his eyes; but the accomplishment gave him a feeling of serenity.
‘Dig it, man. After we blow outta here, we’ll head on down to the Gulf, place I know, do some money trips, and then get the fuck outta Dodge City! Put our shit nationwide!’ He held out his hand to be slapped five.
Donnell propped himself up on an elbow and accommodated him, amused by Richmond’s adoption of him as a sidekick. His function, it seemed, was to agree, to share Richmond’s enthusiasm for drugs, violence, and sleazy sex - those things he considered the joys of life - and to confirm Richmond’s wisdom in all areas except that of intellectual wisdom, dominion over which he accorded to Donnell. He did not particularly like Richmond, and he still had a nervous reaction to him, but the vivid stories shored up his confidence in his own memories.
‘There’s a feelin’, man,’ said Richmond, solemn as a priest, ‘and don’t nothin’ else feel like it. That goddamn four-stroke’s howlin’ like a jet, and your ol’ lady’s got her tits squashed against your leathers, playin’ with your throttle. Whoo! Sex and death and sound effects!’
Audrey and Jocundra were sitting on a bench about thirty feet from where they were lying, and Donnell concentrated on Jocundra. He lowered his head, looked up at her through his brows, and brought her aura into focus: an insubstantial shawl of blue light, frail as the thinnest of mists, glimmering with pinpricks of ruby and gold and emerald-green.
‘Takes a commitment, though,’ said Richmond soberly. ‘If you gonna ride with the ‘hounds, you gotta kill a cop.’
‘You killed a cop?’ Donnell was surprised to learn that Richmond was capable of mortal violence; he had sensed an underlying innocence, a playfulness, and had assumed most of the bloody tales to be lies or exaggeration.
‘Naw, I was just runnin’ probate, but the day’s gonna come, man.’ Richmond plucked a handful of grass and tossed it up into the breeze, watched it drift. ‘My ol’ lady says I ain’t got what it takes to be a one-percenter, but what the hell’s she know? She works in a goddamn massage parlor, punchin’ oV farts’ hornbuttons for fifty bucks a pop. That don’t make her no damn expert on my potential!’
Donnell let the aura fade and studied Jocundra. He constantly was finding new features to examine - a
nuance of expression, the glide of a muscle - and it was beginning to frustrate him to the point of physical discomfort. Through an unbuttoned fold of her blouse he saw the curve of her breast molded into a swell of beige silk, and he imagined it was as near to him as it appeared, warm and perfumed, a soft weight nudging his cheek. He suspected she was aware of his frustrated desire, and he did not think she was put off by the fact he wanted her.
Wheels crunched on the flagstones, footsteps, and Magnusson rolled up, his therapist beside him. ‘Go have a talk with your friends, Laura,’ he said. She started to object, then tossed her head in exasperation and stalked off.
‘Fine ass,’ said Richmond. ‘But no tits. Ain’t none of ‘em got tits like ol’ Audrey.’
‘Gentlemen!’ Magnusson’s lips pursed spasmodically as if he were trying to kiss his nose. ‘I’ve given up attempting to enlist your support, but I’ve made a decision of which you should be aware.’ He glared at them, squeezing the arms of his chair: a feeble old king judging his unworthy subjects. ‘May the third, gentlemen. I want you to mark that date.’
‘Why’s that, Doc?’ asked Richmond. ‘You havin’ a party?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. Mr Harrison! I’m determined you’ll listen to me this time.’
Donnell avoided the old man’s eyes. His nervous reaction was becoming more pronounced, and as often happened around Magnusson, his vision was playing tricks, shifting involuntarily.
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