“The man lived among the tombs. No one could restrain him any more, not even with a chain. He had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but now he wrenched apart the chains and broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day he lived among the tombs, and he was always howling.” (Mark 5: 3-5)
Today’s adventure revolves around “Large,” a 400 pound African American with paranoid schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, amplified through a set of lungs and a wide mouth that can shake steel and concrete. Large is off his meds. In this place they give out medication like it’s candy. But in this place, so they say, they can’t force people to take them. So Large spent a lot of time in the hole as encouragement to get him into a routine for taking his meds. As additional enticement, he was provided extra meal trays and lots of snacks if he took them. So when they brought him onto our block he was pretty calm. But it was not his first time on our block, and those who had been through the ordeal before said, “Just wait.”
Large was kept on RHU status (Restrictive Housing Unit) so that he was locked down while the rest of us were on the block. He kept reciting to himself, “No touching. No touching.” Apparently Large had a habit of putting his hands on inmates and hugging them, especially young white guys. It was said that he had even seized a young man by the shoulders and planted a big wet kiss on his lips. “No touching.” the CO’s would tell him. And Large would answer back, “No touching.”
Large was always hungry. In addition to double meal trays and a bedtime snack of milk and crackers, the CO’s would provide Large with a bag of soups and snacks from commissary for free. They would be gone in a day. One of the Sergeants asked us to share some of our personal commissary orders with Large, which we took turns doing.
After about a week Large stopped taking his meds. He said the nurse was putting soap in them. He was always polite when they asked him if he wanted his meds. “No thank you.” he said, as if he were turning down a cup of coffee.
One morning there was a deep, echoing belly laugh that shook the block. It was contagious, and several of us laughed along with Large. But some weren’t laughing. This is only the beginning, they said. Then came singing and shouting. This guy could have been an operatic bass! His voice had the power of big bass speakers in those cars that you can “feel” coming before you see them. Well, I said, at least it’s not at night. “Just wait.” they said.
It was the middle of the night and something woke me up. We’re used to slamming doors from CO’s on night rounds, and the tv left on too loud all night long. One night the TV blared a series of “Married with Children” episodes, and I awoke every half hour to a booming chorus of “Love and marriage, Love and marriage.” But on this night I awoke and listened. No TV. Nothing. I rolled over. Then the screaming started, like somebody was being attacked. My cellie, also awoke, said “There he goes.”
The CO’s withheld the extra trays, and they stopped giving snacks, hoping Large would cave in and take his meds. When he didn’t, they decided for some inexplicable reason to let him off of RHU status and out onto the block with us. He walked up to people, put his hands on their shoulders, and said, “My friend.” And he would stand and stare at the young white guys. I mean missile-lock staring. Someone said, “I wonder what’s going on in his head.” And someone replied, “We probably don’t want to know.”
Large started talking more, telling us he had painted a building blue with genie blood , and that the frosting on our windows was cocaine residue so the snipers couldn’t see in. I met the white supremacist persona one day when this 400 pound black man started chanting and screaming “white power”. Another day he asked our tierman if he could please turn everybody on the block’s skin color to black. Once, when an inmate said he was trying to figure out God’s plan for him, Large bellowed, “F–God.” And when everybody stopped and stared, he bellowed it again.
Large stopped showering. The block began to reek. He had soap and shampoo and deodorant, but he refused to shower. When the CO then tried to force him, he said he was getting a “holy clean” and waved his hands around his mountainous body. “Holy clean”, he said. “The air is cleansing me.” The CO’s knew they had to do something, so they ordered mandatory showers for our block. The majority of us had already showered, but we did so again, just so Large would get a shower. He did, but he did not use soap, and he climbed back into his stinky clothes.
So we started filling out grievance forms, asking the administrators to either get him to take his meds or to get him off the block. We described his behavior in detail. And a few days later we got our answer. The warden, Asst. warden, Lieutenant, and a CO came in with the nurse and had Large take his meds. Then the warden left and asst. warden told us to stop “f-ing” with Large. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He told us that he would move us to a cell in booking (bad) or to RHU (worse) if we kept it up.” So write your letters, write your judges, write your Congressman because I don’t f-ing care.” And after our lecture Large was let out full time onto the block to move among us. He did not take any more medication. He did not shower. But he did stink and shout and scream.
One night Large was sitting on the floor by the block door, like a giant Buddha statue, his belly hanging out from his shirt. He’d been screaming and talking nonsense since 5 in the morning. And the CO’s, who normally do rounds, simply ignored the problem and did not come around. We couldn’t hear each other talk, and I was about to call my wife, Sonia.
I asked Large to please be quiet. He kept shouting. And I lost it. “Shut up!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. He looked at me and told me calmly that I needed to relax. “You’re too loud!” I said, “You have to quiet down. We can’t hear anything but you.” Then he said, “I’m just expressing myself.” I told him to express himself quietly. And then he told me, with a straight face, that I needed to take my medication. I lost it again. “Are you freaking kidding me?” I shouted. “Seriously?” And I stormed to the phone to make my call. As Sonia helped me to decompress, I kept waiting for the noise to start up again. It didn’t. Large was quiet the rest of the night.
Of course I felt terrible about losing control. I knew the guy had mental health issues beyond his power, and that my frustration was mainly with the administration. One guy on the block told me not to worry about it, because I just said what they all wanted to say.
What do you do with someone like Large? They tried at one point sending him to a state mental hospital, and the hospital sent him back to prison because they couldn’t handle him. If he takes his meds, they are talking about sending him to some other mental facility. But he refuses the medication. The state of California is building a special prison just for inmates with mental health issues, because prisons are seeing more and more people like Large. And California apparently recognized that putting them in with regular inmates causes problems.
If I were Jesus, I’d be able to heal him—to cast out those psychiatric “demons” so that he’d be clean, clothed, and in his right mind at the end of the story. And it would end happily, just as when Jesus healed the unrestrainable howling man who lived among the tombs.
The other night we had our Bible study group at the table by Large’s cell. And we prayed for him—-to be quiet, to take his meds. Later that evening Large was singing in his cell, and I recognized the song. He was singing “The Lord’s Prayer”. He still doesn’t shower. He still does not take his meds. And he’s still extremely loud. But every Sunday and Wednesday at our Bible study we’re praying for him. And I invite you to do the same. You don’t know Large. Of course that’s not even his real name. But God will know who you mean–I’m certain of that. Pray for him to take his meds, and to find a place to be in the world. And pray for prison systems who have no idea what to do with severe mental illness.
Update: Large still did not shower or take his meds. The Warden came in to talk to him. She asked nicely many times for him to take a shower. He told her “F- No!” And then he called her a “white devil.” Several CO’s in gas masks came to take Large out of his cell. They took him to an adjoining block to get him into the shower. We heard him screaming, “It burns. It burns.” We thought they had pepper-sprayed him. It was the water and the soap they were spraying on him. They gave him new clothes and took him to the hole. Keep praying.