Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes by Patricia Highsmith Page B
Authors: Patricia Highsmith
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ordinary households. Old Aunt Fran, who could never get along with anybody, because she suspected and kept accusing everybody of plotting against her, a belief confirmed to her when her own family pushed her out of the house. Or Cousin Ben, a bachelor and inclined to tipple, a habit which cost him his job, and now he wanders the streets of New York, reduced to cheap wine from the Scotch for which he once had a fine palate.
Aline Schroeder, going out of her kitchen door to hang some laundry on the line, was surprised to see two strange men standing in her garden, apparently absorbed in looking at the roses. Having set her basket down, she was approaching them to ask what they wanted, when they turned toward her, and she screamed.
“Eddie!—Eddie, come down !” And she ran toward the house. Aline Schroeder knew mental cases when she saw them.
That was a Thursday morning in a small town in Ohio. Eddie Schroeder, getting nothing from the two vague men, except that one wanted to go to Chicago and the other to New York, kept an eye on them, while he asked his wife to telephone the police.
“They’ve escaped from the loony bin,” Eddie murmured to her. “I don’t want to take ’em on. Not our business.”
“They were supposed to go to the bus stop,” said the police when they arrived. “Brookfield’s letting a hundred or so go back home today. These two must’ve just wandered off.” The police, with no trouble, got the men into their car with a promise to take them to the town bus terminal.
Aline Schroeder was speechless with shock, and Eddie was scowling.
“Get ’em all the hell outa here, Sam,” Eddie said to one cop, whom he knew.
“We will, but we got strict orders to treat ’em kindly,” the officer replied.
Aline Schroeder went into her kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. The story got round town, of course. And, despite the police efforts, the residents of Temple are not yet convinced that the police got them all out of town that memorable Thursday. Especially since more, many more “official medical discharges” occurred since. Yet the old Brookfield Center edifice on the edge of town is still overcrowded.
Brookfield Center is typical of many state and semi-state-run institutions in the United States. It is occupied not entirely by the mentally ill, because it accepts also the elderly whose families haven’t the money for more expensive rest homes, and also convalescent people from state hospitals. Nevertheless in Temple, Ohio, Brookfield has always been known as “the loony bin.” It was common knowledge that some rooms had padded walls and windows with bars. One could see these windows from the outside. Residents of Temple fifty and sixty years old could remember driving past Brookfield with their parents when they were children, and staring at the windows, hoping to see the face of an inmate, though at the same time scared too, because even then it was “the loony bin.” Parents discouraged the children’s curiosity, suggesting that the inmates were all dangerous people, though also to be pitied. But one thing was certain, they had to be kept locked up.
Because of overcrowding in such institutions, a directive went out from Washington, DC in the late 1960s, and was repeated in the 1970s, to release inmates who were not considered violent. This came as a blessing to Brookfield’s harassed staff and to many other such places across the nation. The same message went to prisons, and the slogan was “economy plus humanity,” meaning that the nation could save money by doing this, as well as make life happier for people whose confinement was not necessary.
Some ten percent of Brookfield Center inmates sprang to the minds of Dr. Nelson and his head nurse, Superintendent Dorothy Sweeney, when they received their “Guidance Paper on Federal and State Medical and Psychiatric Institutions,” faces they knew well, along with many of their names too.
“Louis Jones,” said
Aline Schroeder, going out of her kitchen door to hang some laundry on the line, was surprised to see two strange men standing in her garden, apparently absorbed in looking at the roses. Having set her basket down, she was approaching them to ask what they wanted, when they turned toward her, and she screamed.
“Eddie!—Eddie, come down !” And she ran toward the house. Aline Schroeder knew mental cases when she saw them.
That was a Thursday morning in a small town in Ohio. Eddie Schroeder, getting nothing from the two vague men, except that one wanted to go to Chicago and the other to New York, kept an eye on them, while he asked his wife to telephone the police.
“They’ve escaped from the loony bin,” Eddie murmured to her. “I don’t want to take ’em on. Not our business.”
“They were supposed to go to the bus stop,” said the police when they arrived. “Brookfield’s letting a hundred or so go back home today. These two must’ve just wandered off.” The police, with no trouble, got the men into their car with a promise to take them to the town bus terminal.
Aline Schroeder was speechless with shock, and Eddie was scowling.
“Get ’em all the hell outa here, Sam,” Eddie said to one cop, whom he knew.
“We will, but we got strict orders to treat ’em kindly,” the officer replied.
Aline Schroeder went into her kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. The story got round town, of course. And, despite the police efforts, the residents of Temple are not yet convinced that the police got them all out of town that memorable Thursday. Especially since more, many more “official medical discharges” occurred since. Yet the old Brookfield Center edifice on the edge of town is still overcrowded.
Brookfield Center is typical of many state and semi-state-run institutions in the United States. It is occupied not entirely by the mentally ill, because it accepts also the elderly whose families haven’t the money for more expensive rest homes, and also convalescent people from state hospitals. Nevertheless in Temple, Ohio, Brookfield has always been known as “the loony bin.” It was common knowledge that some rooms had padded walls and windows with bars. One could see these windows from the outside. Residents of Temple fifty and sixty years old could remember driving past Brookfield with their parents when they were children, and staring at the windows, hoping to see the face of an inmate, though at the same time scared too, because even then it was “the loony bin.” Parents discouraged the children’s curiosity, suggesting that the inmates were all dangerous people, though also to be pitied. But one thing was certain, they had to be kept locked up.
Because of overcrowding in such institutions, a directive went out from Washington, DC in the late 1960s, and was repeated in the 1970s, to release inmates who were not considered violent. This came as a blessing to Brookfield’s harassed staff and to many other such places across the nation. The same message went to prisons, and the slogan was “economy plus humanity,” meaning that the nation could save money by doing this, as well as make life happier for people whose confinement was not necessary.
Some ten percent of Brookfield Center inmates sprang to the minds of Dr. Nelson and his head nurse, Superintendent Dorothy Sweeney, when they received their “Guidance Paper on Federal and State Medical and Psychiatric Institutions,” faces they knew well, along with many of their names too.
“Louis Jones,” said
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