Freeman called the indictment “sufficiently impressive.” Sufficient for what? To qualify me as a patient for counseling? For a lobotomy? It’s not clear from Freeman’s notes what he made of Lou or her “indictment.”
The second page got a little more intense.
When [Howard] and his step-brother, who are both about the same age, were dressed for school he didn’t want to wear the new clothes but wore his jeans and shirts often ragged, puts a sweater on on the hottest days and goes without an undershirt on a chilly one; he turns the room lights on when there’s broad sunlight outside and strains his eyes to see in the dark when it comes; he hates to wash. Mrs. Dully had to put him on the toilet until he was 6 years old and had to bathe him until he was 8. He used to have rather severe nosebleeds, maybe from picking, but even when blood was smeared on his face and pillow he didn’t tell about it and didn’t seem to realize or acknowledge anything wrong. He still sometimes defecates in his pants or in bed or on the floor, or may wrap up a turd and hide it in the drawer; recently he urinated on the wall of his room; at another time he dribbled from his room all the way to the bathroom; used toilet paper can be found in his closet or in his bed or in the tub.
Mrs. Dully wanted to take Howard again to Family Service. But her husband objected and will probably object to coming to the office and giving his side of the picture. She thinks he is very proud and that he denies trouble rather than face it. He did have to clean up one mess after Howard had urinated on the floor so that it went through the ceiling below.
The only peace of mind that Mrs. Dully has at the present time is when Mr. Orville Black, who is a janitor, takes Howard each Sunday for the past couple of months and is apparently able to relate to him. I asked Mrs. Dully to have Mr. Black come in and tell me his experiences with the boy on Sundays.
From her story, it would seem to be childhood schizophrenia, and this is rather borne out by some drawings which she found stashed away in his closet.
Those were the notes from Lou’s first visit. Could any of it be true? I’m sure I didn’t wash well enough to satisfy Lou. I might have stained my underpants, or dribbled on my way to the toilet. I’m sure I blew my nose and dropped the tissue on the floor. But, wrapping up a turd and hiding it? Come on!
The truest thing Lou said was that my father would object to seeing Freeman. I wasn’t part of any discussion about it, but my little brother Brian remembered terrible arguments about me going on at home. My father thought I was fine. Lou thought I was crazy. They screamed at each other, Brian said, using words so ugly that he ran and hid in his room.
But my father’s resistance didn’t stop Lou, or Freeman. Three days later he had a visit from Orville Black. Freeman’s notes from the meeting told a different story from the one he got from Lou.
Mr. Black is a middle-aged man with iron-grey hair. I gather from Mr. Black that Mrs. Dully is perpetually talking, admonishing, correcting and getting worked up into a spasm, whereas her husband is impatient, explosive, rather brutal, in fact, in the way he won’t let the boy speak for himself, and calls him numb-skull, dimwit and other uncomplimentary names. Under Mr. Black’s rather serene directions Howard has not only looked after himself, such as going and washing his hands, straightening things out, but has been quite helpful at a church picnic where he helped set the table and lay out things and also has shown politeness and consideration of others. Recently, with a boy named Bob, they were doing some miniature golf and Howard left Bob when the latter showed lack of control in hitting the balls too hard and making them bounce. Howard has even expressed a desire to go to Sunday school…
Mr. Black is much more than a janitor at school since he is the confidant of all the lonely boys that can get lost among 300 other boys. He takes pride in being “easy to talk to.” He says that both Mr. and Mrs. Dully are attempting to tone down their criticism of Howard in the hope of getting a better response.
A list of typed topics appears to go with Freeman’s notes from the meeting. Under the heading “Report of Mr. Black,” someone typed things like “Shows frustration. Feels hemmed in. Has confidence in no one. Doubts he can please anyone or do anything right. Has mind of his own. Would like to be trusted. Would try to please anyone he could trust as a friend. Must be handled with positive but friendly attitude.”
Four days later, Lou was back again. She admitted, according to the notes, “Howard did very well Saturday afternoon and Sunday when he was with Mr. Black,” but said, “Sunday evening when he came back he reverted to his former behavior, has been unbelievably defiant, with a savage look on his face, and at times she is almost afraid that he will harm her or somebody else.”
Freeman wrote that my dad was away for a few days but that “he might be the next person to contact.” He also wrote that Lou wanted to bring in her sister, who “was of the opinion that it was step-mother trouble until about a year ago but has now changed her mind.”
Freeman seemed to be looking forward to meeting them. “It should be an interesting family constellation,” he concluded.
I wish I remember more about this period. It was October. The days were starting to get shorter, and cooler. The leaves were changing color and the trees were getting bare. The World Series was coming. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday weren’t too far off.
But I don’t remember much. I didn’t know Lou was seeing Freeman. I didn’t know she was talking about me with psychiatrists. I remember spending those Sundays with Uncle Orville. I remember Lou being mad at me all the time. I remember being called those kinds of names, by her and by my dad.
I remember, for some reason, sitting in the backyard on a little swing set we had there and singing to myself. I liked music, and I liked listening to music, and I often sang songs to myself. (Later on I would take up the guitar and develop the idea that I could be some kind of pop star.) I remember sitting in the backyard, swinging and singing softly to myself. The song was “Moments to Remember,” by The Four Lads.
The lyrics are supposed to be sort of nostalgic. The song has nice harmonies and these sort of glockenspiel bells. The words say:
The New Year’s Eve we did the town
The day we tore the goal post down
We will have these moments to remember
I’d rock back and forth and sing to myself and the tears would roll down my cheeks. What was I crying about? I didn’t go to college yet. I didn’t miss those crazy college days and my old college pals. But I could relate to the sadness of the song.
Sometime during this period, Brian was pulled into the argument about me, and what to do with me. He was taken in by Lou to see Dr. Lopes, who for many years had been our pediatrician. When he got there, Dr. Lopes asked Lou to wait outside. He wanted to speak to Brian alone.
Lopes wanted to talk about me. He wanted to ask Brian questions about what was happening with me. He told Brian that my family was thinking about sending me away because of my behavior.
Brian broke down. He burst into tears. He told the doctor that he didn’t want them to send me away. He wanted me to stay at home with him. He told the doctor there wasn’t anything wrong with me.
Brian would have been about nine at the time. It was the end of his relationship with the pediatrician. He said later, “That’s the last time I ever saw Dr. Lopes. The next time I got sick, I was taken to see Dr. Philips. I never saw Dr. Lopes again. Lou was shopping around for answers, and Dr. Lopes, after talking to me, had come to the wrong conclusion.”
In spite of Lou’s interest in getting me out of the house, and using Freeman to do it, the family was having financial difficulties, and Freeman was charging more than they could afford. There’s a letter from that period, written in November, that Lou wrote to Freeman: “We hope you will accept this payment now and we shall make future payments until paid in full or up to date,” Lou wrote. “If I find a buyer for my antique glassware you shall be paid much sooner.”
It must have been serious if Lou was selling her antiques. But I guess
she found the money somewhere, because the meetings with Freeman continued. The cast of characters increased, too.
Lou got her sister Virginia to come talk to Freeman. She had a lot to say, and I’m sure Lou wanted her to say it as soon as possible.
“Mrs. Dully came in with her sister, Mrs. Virginia Robinson, to discuss Howard,” Freeman’s notes said.
Mrs. Robinson started off by saying that she has six children, one by a former marriage, Linda who is now 16, and who says that Howard gives her the creeps. He’ll sneak up behind her without making any noise and seems to love to startle a person. He looks at one out of the corner of his eye. He seems to have a perverted sense of humor and will repeat something that isn’t funny over and over. He forgets that he’s supposed to do something and may come back three or four times from upstairs, where he’s been told to get something, asking what it was. He seems to be in a fog. Mrs. Robinson considers him a tortured little soul and she pities him, but recognizes the aggravation.
Lou must have stayed on without Virginia, or maybe she continued her indictment with Virginia still there. Freeman’s notes for that day went on:
Mrs. Dully had a talk with the teacher and the latter said that she has 160 pupils and 159 of them she can reach but she can’t reach Howard; he won’t bring his books to school and when scolded he couldn’t seem to care less. However, at times he does so well that he’ll get an A and the next time an F. Mrs. Dully says that Mr. Black considers Howard normal but “When Howard pulls some of that stuff I almost wanted to hit him right then and there.” He says every child must have some fear, but that Howard seems to be afraid of everything.
Next to that, in pencil, was a handwritten word: “Why?” Good question. The next couple of entries offered some explanations.
Mrs. Dully reports that when Howard brought home one of his bad reports his father got mad at him and his mother had to control the father so he wouldn’t abuse the boy; his father being a sixth grade teacher, he might have exercised better control.
Howard cries more easily than anybody either of these ladies knows. For instance, when the boys were making a racket Mrs. Dully told them all to go get out of the house, and when she looked out some time later Howard was way over at the end of the lot, all alone, and she went to him and tears were falling down his cheeks; she patiently explained that all the boys had been reproved and that he shouldn’t take it too seriously.
Any doctor could guess from that report that I was a sensitive kid and that I was living in a difficult environment. He could probably not guess how bad it was. But Lou was filling his head with details: “Mrs. Dully left a number of other observations,” Freeman wrote.
In one handwritten document, dated October 19, 1960, there was a long list of additional complaints. I don’t know if the handwriting was Lou’s, but the complaints were. And they were really ugly.
“Has monkey-like gestures and mannerisms—i.e., scratching head and body,” the notes say. “Tires easily. Needs more sleep. Falls asleep easily in chair. Eyes bloodshot when tired. Not responsive. No appealing to him. Jekel [sic] and Hyde disposition.”
The notes say I couldn’t dress myself properly, that I got dirty all the time, that I was difficult to manage. But they all seemed like such petty complaints. “Won’t move when told time is short. Doesn’t use good judgment. Comprehension not good. Seems useless to convey reasons. Won’t do homework.”
There was also some evidence that, to me, seems like it might have been a red flag to any doctor or psychiatrist who was really listening. “Peeps through windows, whether inside or out,” the notes said. “Facial muscles contract. But no twitch or tics. Shows inward suffering, but can’t describe. Extreme state of agitation. Eyes shift in peculiar manner.”
Those details make me sound like a kid under a huge amount of stress. And some of what she told Freeman makes Lou herself sound disturbed. Freeman’s last notes from that day said:
Finally, she said that she’s being plagued by dreams of Howard. In one of these, which keeps recurring, she wants to spank him but finds that she has no right arm, that it’s just a weak little nub, and she interprets this as meaning that she’ll never be able to spank him. Another time a dream recurred twice that she had her teeth all set to sink in to him and woke to find herself biting the pillow.
Freeman was not ready to make a recommendation. He wanted more information.
“I declined to give any statement until I’ve seen Howard,” he wrote. “And said I would have to see Mr. Dully first.”
Before he could meet with me or my dad, Freeman got a visit from Orville’s wife, Evelyn. On October 21, he wrote,
Mrs. Black says that Rodney’s mother [my dad’s mom, my grandma Boo] was quite aggressive and that she rejected him almost completely so that when Rodney was about 6 years old he was put under the care of Mrs. Black who was quite a different person. “The only love Rodney ever had was mine.” The Blacks had lived in a logging camp for some 17 years and Rodney spent several summers there. He never gave his love to his children and, as a result, his son Howard “does not know how to love. He can’t speak up. Rodney is ruining Howard but he is afraid to talk to anybody. Rodney hushes Howard all the time. Howard seems to like to eat, just like his father did, and eat all the time, and Rodney has been heard to say to him, ‘Well, God damn you, you’ve just eaten two hours ago. Why the Hell do you have to eat now?’” Mrs. Black says, “Like father, like son.” She believes it is quite possible for both the Dullys to change their attitude toward Howard. She feels Howard is a much-maligned lad and that he only needs tender loving care to bring him out of his present state. She doesn’t see anything wrong with him.
Three days later, Freeman had his first meeting with my father.
Mr. Dully came in for a talk about Howard, and says: “The whole family revolves around Howard.” Mr. Dully is unwilling to say there’s anything really wrong with Howard, that it may be either with himself or with Mrs. Dully. Nevertheless, he has no such trouble with the other children in the family. I inquired specifically about instances of precocity in Howard’s case and his father remembered at the age of 2 he found a box of nuts, bolts, switches, wires and screws and a lot of electrical equipment; he took out each piece, examined it carefully, put it aside and after he was finished he put it all back again. Mr. Dully teaches the sixth grade at Hillview and has a lot of other youngsters to compare Howard to but he’s unable to do so. He says when he loses his temper he really beats the boy in a cruel fashion, whereas he’s never laid a hand on the other boys. Then Howard comes back and reproaches him, saying: “You tell me it’s the family as a whole, but I’m the only one that gets it.” This makes Mr. Dully try to restrain himself when Howard does something particularly infuriating. However, he has often caught the boy in a lie, recognizes he’s a sneak, and was particularly disturbed the way Howard was falling down in his school work with social science and language, although he’s doing well enough in mathematics. His performance is so variable as to be a constant source of puzzlement—for instance, the first time Mr. Dully took Howard skiing the boy did very well, and yet the next time he didn’t do well at all. In spite of what Mrs. Dully says about his clumsiness, the boy can throw a ball well and run well. He doesn’t seem to have any particular likes, mostly dislikes, as though he lives in fear all the time.
Two days later, on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 26, Freeman had his first meeting with me.
Freeman seemed at first like a kind, gentle, dapper man. He had a high forehead, a receding hairline, and a pointed goatee. He had round glasses and attentive eyes. He wore a suit and tie.
I liked him at once. He paid attention to me. First of all, he asked me questions about myself. He asked me what I liked to do, and what I didn’t like, and why. He asked me what I thought about things, and how I felt about things. No one had ever asked me how I felt about things, but he did.
And, even more important, when he asked me a question he actually listened to the answer.
Freeman’s office was in a little collection of doctors’ and dentists’ offices near the corner of Fremont and Mary. The place was very clean, and the grounds were very well manicured, and the office looked more like a businessman’s office than a doctor’s office. It was furnished in rich, brown leather. There was no medical equipment in it. There was hardly any paper in it.
Freeman was dressed nicely, in either a sport coat or a suit—not a doctor’s coat. I’d never seen a psychiatrist or a neurologist before, so I didn’t know whether this was normal, but I liked it. And I liked Freeman. He put me at ease. He had a soft voice and warm eyes. He smiled at me. I thought the goatee was cool, too. It made him look a little like a beatnik—like Dobie Gillis or Maynard G. Krebs.
Freeman wanted me to talk about Lou. He asked me whether I disliked her, and why. He wanted to know if I felt like hurting her. I was very open with him. I said that I didn’t want to hurt her, but that I wanted to get away from her. I told him that she spanked me, and that I got the wrath of my father when he came home. I told him that it was hard for me to be in trouble all the time, and that it didn’t seem fair.
My Lobotomy Page 9