speaks to you, you’re not?”
He hesitated, not sure where I might be going with this. “Yes,”
he said, dragging out the word.
“What about the person who decides he must be God, because every time he prays he finds he’s talking to himself?”
His eyebrows shot straight up. “That’s quite good. I’ll have to remember that one. But, after all, it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? Whether God talks to him or he thinks he’s God and he’s talking to himself. In both cases he’s clearly delusional.”
“Insane?”
He shrugged. “Yes, of course.”
“That leaves us with an interesting problem, doesn’t it? Either Moses lied when he claimed God gave him the tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them, or he was delusional—insane according to your diagnosis. The result of course is that the entire moral and legal framework of the western world either rests on a falsehood or is part of an insane delusion. Which do you think it is?”
“I shouldn’t like to think it was either, Mr. Antonelli,” he said in that practiced, well-modulated voice of his. “We’re talking about the kind of mental disease that affects normal people, ordinary human beings. We’re talking about the kind of thing that happened to Elliott Winston,” he added, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground.
“Does Elliott talk to God?” I asked, curious.
Pursing his lips, Friedman narrowed his eyes and peered into the distance. Once again, he began to spin the pencil back and forth between his fingers.
“You mean, does God talk to him,” he said. His eyes came back around. “The answer is, I’m not quite sure I know. Sometimes he hears voices, all right, but whose voices … ?” The question hung in the silence, unanswered and, from the doubtful expression on his face, I assumed unanswerable.
A look of hopeful encouragement entered his eyes. “As long as he stays on his medication everything seems to be all right.”
He reached forward and grabbed a file from a metal holder on the front corner of the desk. Hunched over the open folder, he drew his index finger from the top to the bottom of the page and then, shaking his head, turned to the next one.
“When he first came here, they had him on some pretty dreadful stuff. Thorazine, mainly.” He closed the file. “Well, it was twelve years ago, and that’s what was available,” he tried to explain. “You have to remember, he was considered quite violent.
Not to put too fine a point on it, they kept him pretty well doped up. Have you ever seen anyone on heavy dosages of that stuff?”
he asked, a distasteful expression on his face. “They’re like zom-bies. They can barely function. I wouldn’t have done it, even if he were violent—and, by the way, I have my doubts about that.
I don’t have any doubt he was mentally ill—he still is—but since he’s been my patient—a little over three years now—I’ve not seen any evidence of a disposition toward violent behavior.
“He was initially diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. That was the diagnosis made before he got here, when it was decided that he was suffering from a mental disease and was committed to the state hospital instead of being dealt with in the normal fashion by the criminal justice system. ‘Guilty, but insane.’ That is the operative phrase,” he started to explain. “Oh, I’m sorry,”
he quickly apologized. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? You probably know all about this sort of thing, don’t you?”
I remembered the man who sat next to me for a while that first night I was serving my sentence for contempt, the one who thought I was working undercover to help him because the voice in his head told him that was why I was there.
“I know a little about it,” I replied. I did not tell him what had happened to me in jail; I told him instead about what I had seen in court.
The rain had started to fall, a steady downpour of gray depression, streaking
He hesitated, not sure where I might be going with this. “Yes,”
he said, dragging out the word.
“What about the person who decides he must be God, because every time he prays he finds he’s talking to himself?”
His eyebrows shot straight up. “That’s quite good. I’ll have to remember that one. But, after all, it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? Whether God talks to him or he thinks he’s God and he’s talking to himself. In both cases he’s clearly delusional.”
“Insane?”
He shrugged. “Yes, of course.”
“That leaves us with an interesting problem, doesn’t it? Either Moses lied when he claimed God gave him the tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them, or he was delusional—insane according to your diagnosis. The result of course is that the entire moral and legal framework of the western world either rests on a falsehood or is part of an insane delusion. Which do you think it is?”
“I shouldn’t like to think it was either, Mr. Antonelli,” he said in that practiced, well-modulated voice of his. “We’re talking about the kind of mental disease that affects normal people, ordinary human beings. We’re talking about the kind of thing that happened to Elliott Winston,” he added, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground.
“Does Elliott talk to God?” I asked, curious.
Pursing his lips, Friedman narrowed his eyes and peered into the distance. Once again, he began to spin the pencil back and forth between his fingers.
“You mean, does God talk to him,” he said. His eyes came back around. “The answer is, I’m not quite sure I know. Sometimes he hears voices, all right, but whose voices … ?” The question hung in the silence, unanswered and, from the doubtful expression on his face, I assumed unanswerable.
A look of hopeful encouragement entered his eyes. “As long as he stays on his medication everything seems to be all right.”
He reached forward and grabbed a file from a metal holder on the front corner of the desk. Hunched over the open folder, he drew his index finger from the top to the bottom of the page and then, shaking his head, turned to the next one.
“When he first came here, they had him on some pretty dreadful stuff. Thorazine, mainly.” He closed the file. “Well, it was twelve years ago, and that’s what was available,” he tried to explain. “You have to remember, he was considered quite violent.
Not to put too fine a point on it, they kept him pretty well doped up. Have you ever seen anyone on heavy dosages of that stuff?”
he asked, a distasteful expression on his face. “They’re like zom-bies. They can barely function. I wouldn’t have done it, even if he were violent—and, by the way, I have my doubts about that.
I don’t have any doubt he was mentally ill—he still is—but since he’s been my patient—a little over three years now—I’ve not seen any evidence of a disposition toward violent behavior.
“He was initially diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. That was the diagnosis made before he got here, when it was decided that he was suffering from a mental disease and was committed to the state hospital instead of being dealt with in the normal fashion by the criminal justice system. ‘Guilty, but insane.’ That is the operative phrase,” he started to explain. “Oh, I’m sorry,”
he quickly apologized. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? You probably know all about this sort of thing, don’t you?”
I remembered the man who sat next to me for a while that first night I was serving my sentence for contempt, the one who thought I was working undercover to help him because the voice in his head told him that was why I was there.
“I know a little about it,” I replied. I did not tell him what had happened to me in jail; I told him instead about what I had seen in court.
The rain had started to fall, a steady downpour of gray depression, streaking