AN
OPEN LETTER TO THE REAGAN FAMILY FROM THE
BURKE
FAMILY
Bill Burke
Dear
Friends
My cousin Bill has gone
missing again. When he went into the Navy
during the Vetnam War, he had an IQ somewhere
in the 150s, but he was a little boy, for all
that. He was late in reaching puberty, and
although a good conversationalist and
possessed of a great sense of humor - one of
his History teachers called him "a credit to
the Irish" - he was pretty shy. He had never
dated or done most of the things others his
age did in the sixties and early seventies.
He played chess and read a very great deal, but he was, for the most part, a loner outside of his own family.
Bill - as he looked when he left for Vietnam
He got a notice from the draft board
and on his mother's urging, joined the Navy,
because Aunt Mary didn't want any of her five
boys "dying in a trench." They made him a
radar operator and he served on the infamous
Turner Joy. He wrote us more than any of his
other brothers ever did - funny letters that
revealed a keen observation of the people and
culture around him there.
Then
something went terribly wrong and he was sent
home on a "Section 8." Schizophrenic, and it
appears now, hopelessly so. He is aware that
something is wrong: once he walked into a
medical building and demanded a frontal
lobotomy; fortunately, it was a dentist's
office. He got a full medical
pension (which sounds more generous than it is) from the Navy, and he's entitled to
complete medical care - but mental hospitals
can't keep patients confined since your own
patriarch, Ronald Reagan, and others changed
the rules. (I remember well that the theory of
the day was that inmates of mental
institutions were not ill, ignoring the fact that every culture has terms describing madness; they were either
malingerers, or they were being
unconstitutionally confined for
their individualistic behavior. If they broke the
law, went the song, they should be jailed -
otherwise, they must be FREE!) Well, he
smokes a lot, and if he
runs out, he walks right out of the hospital
in search of people from whom he can
panhandle cigarettes, and even the V.A. won't
stop him. The first time he wandered into the
desert in summer for several days (we live in
the San Fernando Valley)
and was found quite dehydrated - of course he
hadn't eaten either.
Same thing at
Camarillo - and now that has been shut down,
I guess. I suspect that most of the former
inmates and those who would have been, in other days, inmates there,
are living in the filthy alleys and under
overpasses, subject to every kind of
mistreatment (even being shot by the police,
as recently happened to Margaret Mitchell - a
shizophrenic homeless woman) as
they ineptly beg for handouts. Ironically, a
friend of mine recently worked as an extra at
Camarillo - playing a mental patient! Save
for the actors and film crew, the hospital
was empty, she
said. It's too bad that people may see that
show and suppose that there still are such
places for the insane - because there aren't.
But Bill
is missing, and this is how it happened. His
sister, who cares for him, dare not give him
a match or let him smoke unsupervised; he has
nearly burnt down the house several times -
so when he applied to her before 6 a.m. for a
cigarette (he smokes 3 packs a day and would
smoke more if anyone would let him) she told
him to wait awhile, so he left the house to find
cigarettes or someone who would give him one,
and was arrested for panhandling. He was then
taken to the largest facility for housing
mentally ill people in the nation: The
Los Angeles County Jail.
Bill has
wandered off a number of times before, so his
sister went about the routine - tying to find him through
the police, checking the hospitals and the morgue and so on, but, perhaps because
he is quite incoherent, he had been
transferred (after thee days) to General
Hospital for observation, and released
to the streets after the
observation period, it having been determined
that he presented no danger to anyone (but
himself of course).
He is legally blind
and was when he went into the service, too, but in
those days, he could wear a pair of glasses
that corrected his vision sufficiently. Now
he loses, breaks, sits on or otherwise
dispenses with any pair of glasses. So he is
pretty much blind. And he doesn't communicate
well enough to panhandle effectively. he speaks very softly, he stutters, and utters mostly bizarre, meaningless phrases.
Sometimes he remembers his name and sometimes
he doesn't. I hope he found his way or was
guided to a shelter of some kind. I hope he
is being fed. I hope he hasn't been picked up
by the police again and put in jail, and I
hope he hasn't been beaten up or abused just
to amuse someone who doesn't understand that,
in a way, my cousin Bill died in
Vietnam.
A family member has hired a
private detective, but he has had no luck so
far. Posters with his picture, offering a
reward, have been stapled up downtown and in
our town, but that is illegal - and they may
be torn down. He will be hard to recognize
after several weeks in jails and on the
streets without a bath, and we may never see
him alive again.
His sister tries but
he is difficult to live with, and still a
strong man who won't be pushed around though
he isn't aggressive as long as he gets his
way. He doesn't want much since he left the
Navy. He doesn't watch televsion and won't get in a
car or bus if he can help it. He just smokes.
Sometimes in the middle of the night he gets
up and makes himself a snack. He just uses
whatever he can find - biscuit mix, instant
coffee, a bottle of oil, maple syrup or soy
sauce - whatever - and mixes it all up and
drinks or eats it, or tries to cook it by
pouring it on a burner, perhaps, or in a
skillet if he is especially lucid. The house
has a pantry and it is locked - as is the
fridge - but stuff happens. His sister is over sixty now, and rather severely asthmatic. She can't work outside the home because of Bill, and she can't have much of a social life. I don't believe anyone else in the family will be able to care for him - or willing to - if she becomes too ill to do it.
Thanks to
the cost-cutting measures of a governor or
two and a president who built up the largest
debt in our history in defense of a nation
less and less able or willing to care for its
citizens (even its veterans), he is
FREE!
So, my friends, I am writing
to remind you that if anyone in your
family is similarly afflicted, I hope
you will take care not to confine or restrain that person
from wandering where he will - in the
treacherous hills, or the much-trafficked
streets - through the violent slums and the
desperate wastes of Skid Row. I hope you'll
remember that he, too, is FREE.
Sincerely,
Adrien Rain Burke
June
1999
P.S.
Listen - I don't want to sound ungrateful. Thanks
for the missiles, anyway - they were lovely.
Back To Sheena, Queen of Tujunga
Or would you rather wallow in The Post Modern Blues?
