Maurice

 

I would usually arrive on time for my 3 to 11 shift at Fernald School, a residential institution for the mentally retarded.  The red stone building where I worked housed profoundly retarded middle-aged men.  Only a few could speak, and more than half were incontinent. Maurice was always waiting for me when I came out of the staff briefing.  We had a ritual.  

 

Our ritual began one late winter day.  Being a new attendant, I was told to watch the clients in the yard and make sure they didn’t hurt themselves.  The yard was a playground of sorts, with a high chain link fence on one side and a six-foot-high cinderblock wall on the other side.  The confined yard was ringed with a concrete slab path heaved up in places from century-old tree roots that had grown up under them and years of ever-changing seasonal New England weather.  

 

The broken concrete walkway passed in front of a curved cinderblock wall with a dull gray-green metal pipe railing.  It acted like a guard post as I sat on it, watching the residents walk around and around in the yard.  Ward six had a prison-like feel.  

 

As I watched the residents walk around and around, one of my new co-workers dropped a load of soiled bed linens and dirty clothing in the middle of the patio behind me.  It smelled.  I knew my next job was packing the load into heavy canvas linen bags.  That was another job to initiate new attendants.  I had been initiated.

 

In the middle of the brown and spotty grass yard was a rusty four-seat swing set anchored in the hard, wind-worn ground.  The concrete anchors were exposed.  The ground below each swing was trenched from years of foot-dragging.  It must have been years since new grass was planted or paint was put on the swing seats.  

 

Maurice sat on the second swing, his feet did not touch the ground, and he was nearly motionless, just sitting, not swinging.  I am not sure he knew how to swing himself.  He could not dress himself, although once dressed, he kept his clothes on, which was not the case with several other residents.  

 

Maurice looked lonely then most.  I got off my fence sitting guard post, went down into the yard, and over to Maurice.  I gave him a push.  As I began to swing him up higher, he let out a squeaky noise of fear, so I stopped.  He looked at me, and his eyes let me know he wanted me to swing him more.  So I began to swing him gently with my hand on his lower back.  I pushed him out, then eased him back.  I made sure he knew I was there behind him.  After a while of pushing, I took my hand away.  Maurice seemed scared and shuddered each time, so each time I reassured him.  I spoke to him in the same tone and manner I spoke to a dog or other animal, expecting no response, wanting only to soothe and reassure him with my verbal contact.  We swung for nearly an hour. 

There was no rush to pack the soiled linen into the bags.  The truck would be by after bedtime.

 

The dinner bell rang, and just like Pavlov predicted, Maurice and the other hungry men got up and walked to the patio ramp.  They marched their way into the pale green, cold terrazzo floored dinning room and each took a seat at one of the bench-like tables with a meal tray and a metal drink cup pre-set at each place.  

 

Maurice and the others ate routinely fast, protecting their food from others.  When dinner was finished, the remainder of that evening, like all other evenings, was spent doing next to nothing.  Profoundly retarded men did not notice they were doing nothing, and most sat and rocked back and forth or watched TV like a tree watches daylight.  My shift ended at 11, and after the staff meeting, I left. 

 

When I came to work the next day, Maurice was waiting for me.  He took my hand and walked me down to the swings; grabbed the seat and sat himself down.  He just sat there, which gave me all the instructions I needed.  We picked up where we left off the day before, and I swung him first with my hand on his lower back, then slowly without it.  

 

Maurice got more comfortable.  He was a nervous soul by nature, but otherwise not communicative verbally or emotionally. He required less attention than most of the residents and was able to let me know if he had to go to the bathroom.  He would lead me there and back.  Most other clients required checking and changing.  That was a big part of an attendant’s job.  

 

Maurice, I found out, was left at the Fernald grounds just after birth and spent his entire adult life in this building.  He was much older than I was.  He had six toes on both feet, oversized knurled and arthritic hands.  His legs were permanently bowed from the arthritis and genetically deformed bones, and it caused him to walk with a waddle with both feet pointing out like a humorless Charlie Chaplin.  Maurice’s chest and head were large for his small five-foot-four or five-inch frame; his teeth were grossly misaligned, and the two front teeth were off-center, large, and beaver-like.  His face looked like Mortimer Snerd’s, the dumb looking friend of Charlie McCarthy.  He had a full head of wavy hair and very few wrinkles for a man who must have been in his late fifties.  His innocent child-like face and his odd, deformed body were unmistakably retarded.

 

Each day, Maurice would patiently wait for me, and each day after the staff meeting, he would take my hand in his and tow me down to the swings.  We spent some of the time each day before dinner on the swings.  Our peaceful ritual was interrupted from time to time by ward emergencies like a seizure, a very messy client, or an accident involving blood or some territorial dispute that was disturbing the other residents.  

 

Otherwise, Maurice and I would swing in the yard.  The yard was a much better place to be than inside the state-run institution that had the permanent musty smell of urine and feces and echoed with primal cries of distress or other noises of a grown retarded man wanting immediate attention.   

 

Maurice became very comfortable and trusting. I could push him harder and higher, and the swing ride became more exhilarating for both.  There was still the concern he might fall off, but we both knew that thrill was part of the fun.  He was having fun, and so was I. 

 

Each day, the dinner bell would ring, and off we marched.  After dinner, I was unavailable to give him my full attention.  I needed to take care of the other wards of the State, clean them up, and get them to bed.  Only occasionally would I put Maurice to bed.  That was not part of our ritual.

 

One day, while swinging Maurice, he looked back at me and made a sound.  I had never heard a sound like it before or since, except when I try to make the sound as part of telling this story.  It was a very deliberate yet ambiguously expressive sound.  Maurice would force air through his upper teeth that were clenched down hard on his lower lip.  As the air pushed over his soft lips and twisted around his oddly spaced teeth and made a ffffffff noise.  He repeated several times, inhaling deeply between each expressive forced air exchange.  He was trying to tell me something.  That was certain.  Maybe he was trying to tell me how much he enjoyed the play, or that he wanted something else.  I will never know.  

 

At that moment, I thought about his genetic plight in a much deeper way.  Up until then, I had been a fascinated Psychology student wanting to clinically observe and do some good for these captive and unfortunate humans.  I now saw him as a nut-and-bolts machine, a broken machine, a machine that might have had all of the input parts working, perhaps perfectly, and yet he was unable to operate the output parts or to completely close a touching communication process.  A frustration I can only imagine.  A frustration that I sensed he strongly felt.  I imagined what it must be like to see, hear, and feel, and not be able to say or express anything. 

 

It was clear Maurice had something to say.  It was clear he knew what he wanted, and clear he could get me to give him pleasure, and it was now clear he was trapped inside.  I had already seen that in his expressive eyes.  However, I could see something new in his eyes. I could see his spirit now.  The combination of his ffff-ffff-ffff and his eyes, especially his deep brown bay eyes, told me “I want to say something to you but I can’t, and it is hurting me badly, can you understand that?”  I felt I could.  

 

I did not know what Maurice wanted to say, but I knew with certainty it was completely frustrating for him to not be able to say it.  He grabbed my hand, hard pulled me close, and ffffff’d at me again and accidentally sprayed saliva on my face. I was only an inch away from his.  I leaned away to avoid the spray of his next ffff-ffff-ffff, but the ffff-ffff-ffff became part of our ritual too.  From time to time after that, Maurice would grab my hand hard and ffff-ffff-ffff at me sometimes during our swing, sometimes before or after.  It was his way of saying something, which I do not know.  Nor do I know if it made him feel better to attempt to express it or worse, as a sad reminder that he could not make verbal contact.  After five months, I left.  I was off to other studies.  I was only able to visit once.  He remembered me.

 

I think of Maurice from time to time and now wonder how we all are built.  I see Maurice’s eyes and feel what those eyes tell me.  But, when I hear his ffff-ffff-ffff I still wonder what he meant.  I think about how much might have been going on within and how lonely keeping all your feelings inside must be.

 

I am certain Maurice must have passed on by now.  Our last swing was decades ago, and the average life span of a profoundly retarded male is certainly not much over fifty, at best.  I can still see his eyes and can hear his ffff-ffff-ffff, and I wish I could let him know again that I felt his frustration.  If all he was saying was - Thank You, I want to tell to him – You’re Welcome.  

 

I suppose I wrote this to make sure my inner thoughts make it out.  I feel I need to speak for Maurice.  Thank you.