The Mythical Bill: A Neurological Memoir

Part One [Includes Image Plates]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PartOne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diary of William J [“Bill”] McAuliffe [final entry] Thursday December 19 [1974] I just recently returned from my second stay at Passavant where I was taken + put in restraints because I put on such an exhibition that I went out of control + Joy had to take me to the hospital where for good or evil as far as I know I was running around outside in my pajamas + accosting various neighbors. I was in the lock ward there for some time having considerable difficulty swallowing + eating. This was gradually counteracted but not before a lot of anxiety + mental anguish. Even after being transferred to Ward 10 East I had an awful lot of terror + anguish. I’ve been even more terrified since I came home. Everybody insists that I must have something I enjoy doing as a sideline. I tried the clarinet but it’s too difficult as I don’t know all the sharps + flats + have forgotten some of the fingerings. I am trying to do some writing now in an attempt to reconcile some of these insuperable deluges of depression + despair that I’m feeling. As far as doing things that I like to do I’m writing now to overcome some of these feelings now that I’m home again. Honest to God though I don’t know if I’ll be able to hack it or not. God help me if I don’t though, because this is the last chance. I always feel though that I’d feel better off dead. Well so much for now though. WJMcAuliffe 12 Part One The Great Escape He called me Johannesburg, South Africa. They named me Johanna Dianne after my patron saint, St. John of the Cross, but only in order to call me Jody. Or, in his case, Johannesburg. Walking with him to church some Sunday when I am still pretty little, holding his hand, I take big steps to keep up with him, mainly looking down and assiduously—one of his key words—avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk . Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. At that point I may have wanted to; she was my chief competition. Cut to Church of the Divine Infant in the western suburb of Chicago where I grew up, and we’re sitting behind two kids younger than me, craning their necks around to stare at my father. I see them and so must my father but we say nothing. They will not turn away. I don’t understand why they stare because I don’t understand that there’s anything wrong with my father. I don’t feel ashamed. Erving Goffman, “a student of the problems of face-to-face interaction,” would say that I was “a wise person .” As the daughter of the torticollitic, I live inside his world, even now, long after he is gone. In his Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System, W. R. Gowers applies the term torticollis to a condition in which contraction—persistent shortening or active spasm—of the muscles of the neck causes an unnatural position of the head. The condition, Gowers believes, is nervous in nature. There are those who see the metaphor quite clearly: the sufferer is turning away from something he does not want to see. The body betrays the feelings of the sufferer. The neck is in revolt, fear made visible. My father had torticollis, even though he had surgery for torticollis on November 25, 1954, the day after I was born. His head and neck had come to an agreement without his knowledge. My current question of what exactly torticollis is turns out to be a good one because it is one of those questions that cannot be answered simply. I have a creeping consciousness of a certain symmetry, some as-yet-obscure relationship between his surgery of November 25, 1954, and my birth the day before. He died thirty-four years ago. The date is in question. By the time the VA hospital decides to show his body to my mother, who is a Part One 13 registered nurse, she can see that he has already been dead for twentyfour hours. You’re not supposed to die in the psychiatric ward. Your wife is not supposed to see your dead body twenty-four hours after the fact. I am the same age as my father when...