April 19th, 2008
THE ORNARY MAN IN THE BHU

An elderly mother waits in line to check-in her developmentally disabled son at the Behavioral Health Unit. Her son is a man who looks like he’s in his mid 40’s. He is pacing by the water cooler, watching his mother waiting in line. Now, he’s hobbling over. His brow is furrowed, and he
seems upset. “Why are you waiting here in this line?” he shouts.
“Because we have to wait for your turn,” his mother scolds him. She looks exhausted.
“But that window’s empty,” he says, extending his whole arm to point at the window next to them.
“It doesn’t matter. No one’s behind that window.”
The man continues to pace.
Now, it’s his mother’s turn. She is speaking to the receptionist, and her son has just shoved his way into the window. He is trying to communicate something. His voice is droning. I hear the polite words of the receptionist trying to answer his question.
“Go sit down and behave yourself,” the mother says, elbowing him out of her way.
Next to the line, there is a wall with flyers on it. Something catches his eye. He’s taking a closer look.
Now his mother is done at the window, and she says, “Let’s go sit.”
“NO,” he says. “I want to read this!”
His mother stands there with her hands on her hips, seeming way too old to be still scolding her now balding son. She catches me looking and I smile. She smiles and rolls her eyes. And I smile again in
commiseration. He is reading a flyer for an anger management
workshop. “You don’t need that,” she says, and then adds, “You should, but you don’t.”
I can see she’s been patient. For years. And that she hasn’t got much patience left. “Come on,” she says.
He doesn’t listen.
She goes to grab his arm and he swerves his arm away. She clenches her jaw, “I don’t need to be here, you know. If you can’t be nice and good, I’ll leave.”
He doesn’t budge.
“Did you hear? If you don’t behave, I’m going to leave you here. I’ve got a car, you know.”
“I can’t hear you,” the man blurts out.
“Where’s your hearing aid??”
“Home,” he yells.
It’s great seeing this adult behave like a child. It’s like how I am inside my brain, but I’m able to keep it in my brain.
Maybe that’s what being developmetally abled means- the ability to pretend to be
functional.
“Can we go out for dinner?” he blurts out, still staring at these flyers.
She sighs. A resigned sigh. “It depends on how you are here.” She pauses and tries to be pleasant. “I haven’t even had lunch and you want to talk about dinner.”
“I want to go to dinner,” he says, rudely and caveman-like.
She leans into him and whispers, “I am about to lose
my tempter.”
He still isn’t listening, and she says in a loud whisper, “I am such a nervous wreck that I don’t much care if I…” she stops, and looks around. Maybe she realizes she’s still in public.
She still hasn’t
finished her sentence. Instead, she has gone to sit down in other room, leaving her son to be mesmerized by the anger management flyer.