There are no good answers to most of her questions, but I am reluctant to tell her that, since I still want her to think somebody’s in charge in this country.
10
From a distance the Blackwell County Human Development Center looks like a college campus or some fancy prep school. Ancient brick the color of a four-day-old hematoma is stacked in institutional splendor in front of me as I drive under a silver arch onto the grounds. As I wind around a narrow asphalt street, I wonder how often the residents try to run away into the wooded area that surrounds the campus for miles. Trees give Arkansas its natural beauty, but here I wonder if they could be a hindrance to the security of the residents. Surely a severely retarded person would in some ways be safer lost in the city than in the country. But I suspect few residents, judging from the lack of activity outside on this unusually mild July day (it must be no more than eighty degrees and it is almost eleven), spend much time outside these musty old buildings I am passing.
I ease the Blazer between a Bronco and a Chevrolet pickup outside of what I take to be the central office. Andy has told me I must sign in first before I come to his office. What would institutions do without a sign-in book? Inside a small waiting room I look at the names and addresses before me:
Rogers, El Dorado, Helena. This place is not your neighborhood school. Relatives must travel hours for a visit, so I can assume that residents are grouped around the state by level of severity. As I write my name, a man of about forty taps me on the shoulder. He is, I hope, a resident: his eyes are crossed; he has a hump a camel would be proud to own, and from the sounds he is making he is without intelligible speech. He is holding out his hand, and though I have represented many mentally ill people who acted much stranger, I feel myself flinch.
“Homer,” the woman behind the glass says mildly, “what’re you doing down here? Does Mr. Trantham know you’re down here?”
Homer, who is dressed in jeans and a red, long-sleeved western shirt, makes more sounds I can’t understand; but there is no mistaking the friendly grin on his face.
To me the woman says, ““He wants to shake hands.”
There are food stains on Homer’s shirt, and I find that I am reluctant to touch this man who seems delighted by my presence. No telling where those hands have been, but with the woman watching me, I have no choice but to eKtend my hand. He pumps away, and I steel myself to really look at him closely and find that I am not as grossed out as I thought I would be. Of course, I have seen retarded people before, but not so close I could feel their breath on my face. I realize now that I think of them as freaks, some of whom are harmless and some who aren’t.
“How are you?” I ask loudly, self-conscious as a teenager meeting his first date’s father, knowing every word I say will be repeated by the beaming receptionist, a country woman whose brown hair is pulled tight in a bun behind her head. Homer grins sheepishly, as if he had been told an off-color joke in the presence of his mother.
I turn and look at the woman who orders, “Let go of his hand, silly!”
I think she is talking to me and pull my hand away just as he pulls his back, and he and I both giggle nervously. I’m beginning to feel like I’m the newest resident. Homer now studies me with unconcealed glee. He knows a soul mate when he sees one.
“Who’ve you out here to see?” the woman asks amiably, her voice crackling with humor as she files away the story. I thought he was his brother he acted so dumb!
“You didn’t write in who you’re visiting.”
I take a good look at my interrogator. She has a dimple on her left cheek as deep as a small well and her eyes are a sparkling green behind steel bifocals. She could be anywhere between forty and sixty.
“I’m here to see Dr. Chapman.”
Her dimple disappears instantly as her cheeks swell with disapproval.
“I saw you on TV.” Unvoiced is her unimpeachable indictment of me: You’re his lawyer.
I confess that she probably did and ask, “Can you tell me where his office is?”
“Homer,” she snaps, “take him upstairs to Dr. Chapman on your way back to your unit.”
I don’t know whether I am to take this as an insult or a high honor, but Homer, who seems to have permanently grasped the power of positive thinking, appears ecstatic. He nods eagerly, and without another word I follow him through an unmarked door. Once through the door we make a series of turns, and I realize immediately I am lost as we come upon two elevators. Happily, we take the stairs (though Homer appears entirely harmless, I’d just as soon not spend a couple of hours between floors with him). On the stairs we pass a little black male surely no older than twenty. He points at me and laughs hysterically. Homer frowns and says some thing that sounds unmistakably like “Fuck off.” It begins to dawn on me that if I stayed out here a week, I’d understand everything he is saying.
Upstairs, we pass through a set of double doors, and to my left is a group of obviously retarded men sitting on sofas watching a soap opera. This strikes me as strange, but why should it? It’s not as if you have to be a rocket scientist to watch “All My Children.” In the same area further ahead we pass a card table around which three employees (two men and a woman) dressed in ordinary clothes are sitting. I assume they are staff (I realize I expected to see nurses in starched uniforms sweeping by me on their way to patients’ rooms). Yet the residents, as strange as they look, are not, for the most part, sick, though I assume some are on medication to control their behavior.
Before I can speak, the woman, who seems to be sorting some papers as the men look on, says, “Homer, where’re you taking him?”
Without breaking his shuffling gait, Homer makes a series of noises, the last part of which sounds to me like “Lapland.”
Chapman. The three give me a hard stare but say nothing. Everybody in America knows a lawyer when they see one.
Andy is reading what appears to be a textbook in a small, dingy office with the door open and looks up as Homer brings me into view. The green concrete walls are mostly bare except for a calendar and an empty metal shelf. It is as if Andy has already been packed up.
I explain, “Homer brought me.”
Andy smiles, his eyes crinkling with pleasure at the sight of Homer, who now looks relieved to have discharged his unpopular task.
“Thank you, Homer,” he says formally.
“You did a good job. Go on back to the dayroom.”
Homer nods and moves off, his peculiar old-man’s gait no longer as distracting to me as when I arrived.
Andy rises and gravely offers his hand.
“Have a seat. I’ve been transferred up here out of harm’s way,” be says, his voice sounding sarcastic and at the same time embarrassed.
Wearing a short-sleeved sky-blue knit shirt over a pair of comfortable-looking pleated khaki pants, he is dressed far more casually than I expected. But then, I suppose Homer doesn’t mind. I sit in a metal folding chair opposite him, already feeling closed in.
“What are you supposed to be doing all day?” I ask, trying unsuccessfully to read upside down the title of his book. “Right now I ‘m reviewing our training literature,” he says mock-importantly, and then mutters, “as if it matters.”
I pick up the book from his desk. It is entitled: Nonaversive Intervention for Behavior Problems: A Manual for Home and Community. I flip through the pages, realizing I know zero about what is expected of retarded people.
“Doesn’t it?
“I ask.
A bitter look crosses Andy’s face.
“It’s supposed to, but there’s so much turnover,” he says, looking past me into the hall, “Homer isn’t going to
