RIP " Sweetheart "

My dear friend Julius resides in a spacious, former mansion in

historic Pawtuxet Village, not far from Gaspee Point. He is studying

enthusiastically to be a mortician- not wishing to follow in his

brilliant father's footsteps: Dr. Gall, a refugee from the tragic

1956 " Hungarian Revolt " was for many years a resident psychiatrist

at the IMH .

Julius - in need of a little spending money - had been supporting

himself by caring for a very strange man, also a Hungarian refugee,named

Lazarus.

Lazarus was an " autistic " but forget about the movie " Rainman "

if you want to form a mental picture of him. His face was horribly

disfigured- by a Molotov cocktail, so I was told.

A " pioneering " surgical technique in then communist Hungary was

to replace or repair a shattered human jaw bone with one of a recently

destroyed Pit Bull.

Lazarus had a hideously scarred face, a missing eyeball, and the

lower jaw of a dead Pit Bull.

Feeling lonely late at night, I would often try to call my friend

Julius. But the conversation was invariably brief. Lazarus, groaning

freakishly in the background, would force him to hang up the phone.

Julius told me that he had trouble sleeping at night- because

Lazarus would not stop grinding his teeth.

One cheerful day -it began cheerful at least - in late October I

visited Julius with my beloved dog and companion Chipper. Lazarus

hated Chipper at first sight: in a moment he began a ferocious attack.

Holding poor terrified Chipper in his Pit Bull jaws, he would not let

go until Julius hit him on the skull with a metal baseball bat.

Chipper was never the same after that first and last encounter

with " Sweetheart ". He spends all day trying to catch mice and birds-

as if he were now a slightly crazy cat.

Last night - actually at three o'clock in the morning - Julius

called me in a very melancholy mood. He reported that Lazarus had

accidentally electrocuted himself while taking his evening bath.

Julius said that he personally would take care of the funeral

and the legal business.

I asked me if I would be best man at the wake .



I relate this story to the general public because I have always

been an opponent of deinstitutionalization .