His name was Dominick. It was my job to help him with his basic needs. I carried his food and water to him, helped him bathe, shaved and visited with him. He acted overly religious, like a preacher. He was in his late thirties, slim, tall, and a good looking man. I was a psychiatric student nurse when he was admitted to a state mental hospital observation ward in California.
The ward had a nursing station, a long hallway, and a dozen or so cells with small steel-barred windows on the heavy doors. A pretty nurse was in charge, and several male and female psychiatric attendants kept the ward and the patients clean. I was one of two student nurses assigned to the admitting ward where patients were observed. They stayed there three months before being released or being assigned to more permanent wards.
Several days after I started my training there, Dominick was admitted, and I was assigned to his case. His chart contained brief notes about his medications, diet, religion, and family. Nothing was written about his personality. When I entered his locked room, I felt the coldness of the cement floor and the bare, gray walls. A single bed was the only furniture, and Dominick wore blue loose-fitting pajamas. He started preaching to me right away, “I am here to save you. God talked to me and told me to help you and everybody. If you do what I say, you will live forever and be saved from hell. I am the only one who can save you. Believe in me, and worship the Lord thy God. Believe in me, and you will have everlasting life.”
His preaching reminded me of a woman I had met years before when I was a county hospital orderly. She insisted she was Jesus Christ. When I asked her why she looked like a woman, she explained, “The doctors cut off my male organs.” She was also a preacher trying to save everyone she talked to, but when she became angry, she used the best cuss words you’ve ever heard! But let us go back to Dominick.
Once a week the review board evaluated patients in a large room with an amphitheater where spectators sat. On my first visit to the review board, I sat up high toward the back. Two psychiatrists officiated with a nurse stenographer seated at a table where she kept a written record of the meeting. Seated in the gallery were several nuns, clergymen, nurses, social workers, students, and teachers. Everyone seemed to me to be serious, dignified, and well educated. Dominick was brought in to testify on his own behalf. We listened carefully to see if the man was really crazy. One of the psychiatrists asked Dominick a few simple questions like, “What is your age? Where were you born? What is your present address? What year is it.?”
Finally, the doctor asked, “Why are you here? What is the reason you are living here in a locked room?”
Dominick began preaching right away. “I am Dominick. I was sent here by Almighty God to save you. I am here to help you. If you will only listen to me and do what I say, you will be saved from the burning fires of hell. They brought me here and took away my wallet and my clothes. They locked me in that little room, but I could look out through the bars and see the pretty nurse walking by. I told her I was here to save her. I said, ‘Bring me a long white candle and I will burn it for you.’ But she didn’t bring me the candle. I think she used it on herself.”
Most of us in the gallery were shocked to hear him. Nobody laughed, but I was about to burst holding it back. Dominick continued after the doctor asked why he was locked up. “My wife called the police and had me brought here. I guess she was mad at me. I used to do it to her in the bed all the time and she liked it. I kissed her down there when we were in bed because God told me it was good, and it would help her. But, when she saw me in the back yard doing it to the dog, she got sore at me and called the cops.”
I guess I was the only person there who could not keep from laughing out loud.