“ How dare you treat me this way ! ” boomed a husky voice with a dense easterly European accent . “ I ’m B. B. King of the Puerto Ricans , ” come the roar from the packed waiting room .
It was a tender , humid June even , about eight post meridiem Although I ’d been a resident for only a few month , my instincts told me this would be one of those night when the emergency elbow room would bring in its byname as Bedlam ’s Door , a revolving carousel of psychosis , with one mad person after another being steered to the facility by the constabulary , family members , or champion .
“ King of the Puerto Ricans , ” bellowed the man , his voice reverberating through the corridor . The title was dead absurd — from his ego - promulgate royalty to his non - Hispanic accent . It was outlandish , even for the environs of Manhattan Hospital ’s exigency elbow room .
Another leonine yowl of Slavic - sounding speech brought me to my feet .
peer into the reception area , I saw a beefy man bound securely to the confines of a high - back wooden wheelchair .
Despite his raging , the mankind — appearing to be in his 1960s — had a cherubic - looking look , with orotund , rosy cheeks and shaggy , saturnine eyebrows . A huge head of hair of white hair crowned his head . Highly agitated , he sputter against the sheet strap tie him to the wheelchair . Though his ankles were secured to the contraption ’s front rigging , he manage to recoil and stomp his foundation on the footrest .
“ Let me go . I have work to do , ” he roared .
His give-and-take were barely comprehendible , partly due to his agitation , but also because he sink into a foreign speech — perhaps Polish , or some other Slavic - vocalize tongue . He shake the wheelchair violently , attempting to break-dance costless . A woman wearing a drear housedress tried to quieten him , but he keep shouting .
A police policeman I have it off saw me and approached .
“ What ’s up , Officer Romano ? ” I demand .
“ He was melt down down Delancey Street , tossing trash baskets and shouting . We could n’t manipulate him . He ’s as strong as an ox . You try what he ’s yelling ? ” Romano didder his head . Over the years , he ’d bring his share of patients to our door , but this one clearly puzzle him .
That hebdomad I ’d already meet the putative boy of God , an enraged Moses , and Satan himself . But I never imagined meeting the king of the Puerto Ricans .
“ Who ’s the woman ? ” I ask .
“ His wife . She say his name ’s Nathan . . . Nathan B. ”
“ Any premature chronicle you know of ? ” I asked .
“ Nope . The neighbors say he ’s always been a tranquil guy and a hard worker . A carpenter . ”
A carpenter ? Why does n’t he think he ’s Jesus ?
Romano looked at me with raise supercilium . “ You ’re not gon na give us difficulty with this one , are you , Doc ? ”
He knew I ’d institutionalise the police packing slews of times with sottish and chaotic miscreants they drop back to the emergency room , attempt to nullify toss out them into the precinct ’s drying - out armoured combat vehicle . The bull hated babysitting sot almost as much as they loathed the paperwork involve . But Nathan B. was a humans lost in the throe of madness .
“ Looks like you ’re safe on this one , but let me talk to his wife . ” Mark Rubinstein
Sarah B. ’s pallid face sagged . Her grey-headed hair was connect back in a roll . She pat at her reddened eyes with a handkerchief . In the housedress , she looked like a Russian or Polish peasant woman from a gone era .
“ Mrs. B. , how did this start ? ”
“ It was maybe two weeks ago , Doctor , ” she said with a thick emphasis . “ After Nathan bruise his back . ”
“ What happened ? ”
“ He ’s a carpenter and was work on the ceiling of a house . He fell down onto a pile of wood . He ’s lucky to be alive , ” she said , again dab at her optic . “ He broke a bone in his back , and now he can’twork . Maybe never . . . Only if it heals , the doctors said . And they do n’t know — a human his geezerhood . He ’s sixty - four . And , all he knows is body of work . ”
“ What happened after the fortuity ? ”
“ After he find out of the hospital , he was very still . He talked to no one — not even me . He just looked out the window . He was n’t my Nathan any longer . ”
“ What do you mean ? ”
“ He seemed so pitiful , so down in the mouth , ” she said , brushing aside a binge .
“ Did he ever have an episode like this before ? ” I asked , wonder if Nathan B. might be suffering from bipolar disorder .
“ No . Never . But after he got hurt , he began peach to himself — strange words . And then came dreams , fearsome dreaming . He would squall out in his sleep . And when he fire up up , he would shake and be covered in effort . He was so wet , I had to change the bed sheet . He would step all night , like a barbarian beast . And talking to himself — under his breather , in Hungarian . I tell you , Doctor , we never spill in that language . . . only English .
“ I ask him , ‘ Nathan , what ’s faulty ? ’ and he say , ‘ I have nightmares . ’ But he would tell me nothing more . He said , ‘ Sarah , you would not want to cognize . ’
“ It got risky . He would never leave the house . ” Her lips trembled . “ When he get wind sirens , he shook . He think they were coming for him . ”
“ The police ? ”
“ Yes . He said , ‘ They ’re come for me . ’ ”
“ Did he tell apart you why ? ”
“ He would n’t say . He never did a matter improper in his life sentence . ” Tears talk from her eyes . “ I know it ’s from his living in Europe . ”
“ What bechance ? ” I asked , fairly sure of the event to which she was look up .
“ The German Nazi , ” she grumble , as her hands went to her cheek and she sobbed .
“ Mrs. B. , where are you from in the beginning ? ”
“ We ’re from Hungary . ”
“ When did you hail to the United States ? ”
“ We came in 1947 , after the war . ”
“ Where were you during the warfare ? ”
“ Nathan lived through Auschwitz . But he never talk about it . ”
“ And what about you ? Were you in the refugee camp ? ”
“ No . I lived with a family on a farm . And I met Nathan after release . ”
“ In a displaced persons refugee camp ? ”
She nodded . “ And we came here . We made a good life together . ”
When Nathan was wheel around into the business office , his eyes bulge out and his face shone with sweat . His shirt was imbue with sudation . He was ungratified and his eyes darted from the wall to the ceiling .
I introduced myself , enunciate , “ I ’d care to talk with you . ”
No reception . He seemed lost in some inner world .
He wear employment pants , heavy boots , and a dead - sleeved work shirt . His bureau was broad and powerful - looking . His hands , large and roughly calloused , were those of a man who ’d done woodwork all his life . His forearm , slash to the wheelchair ’s armrest , await as though cable television were bunch within them . A serial of blue - fateful numbers was tattoo on his left-hand forearm — a end of Auschwitz .
“ Mr. B. ? ”
“ How can you do this ? ” he growled . abruptly , his eye crawled over me . Spittle constitute at the corners of his mouth .
“ Do what ? ”
“ How dare you tie up a Martin Luther King Jr. ! ” he scream hoarsely .
“ How did you become king ? ”
“ God made me queen . Do you question his intelligence ? ” His mentum quivered .
I say nothing .
“ do me , ” he demanded . “ Do you call into question God ’s word ? ”
He trembled so intensely , the wheelchair shook .
“ No . I do n’t question God or his word , ” I say . “ But why Rex of the Puerto Ricans ? ”
“ Such a poor people . . . and persecute . They must go to their own country . ” His eyes range about the office once again . “ What is this place ? ” he demanded .
“ You ’re at Manhattan Hospital . ”
“ What am I doing here ? I ’m not gaga . ”
“ You were running down the street , bewilder trash can . . . ”
“ I was calling my people . . . my subjects . ”
“ What did you have in head ? ”
“ We must leave before the SS gets here . ”
“ What makes you call up they ’re coming ? ”
His fount tighten , and sweat dribbled from his hairline . “ Ca n’t you see ? There ’s no meter impart . ”
“ Before what happens ? ”
“ We ’ll be taken by . . . to the camps . They require to kill all of us . ”
“ shoot down who ? ”
“ My people . All the Puerto Rican citizenry . It will be a holocaust . ”
“ Why now ? ”
“ The time has come . ”
His eyeball rolled upward and he fixed his stare at the ceiling . He began muttering a goulash of English , German , and Hungarian .
Nathan B. ’s head of hair of white hair , coupled with his upward gaze , prompt me of Renaissance painting render ancient prophets — maybe something by Caravaggio — painted in swart colors with celestial light ray from some godly presence .
“ Mr. B. , I understand you began feel bad a few weeks ago . . . ”
His garbled muttering carry on . He was turn a loss in a world of messianic Apocalypse . The extent to which cozen thinking could seize a mortal never failed to amaze me .
I tried again to get him to talk . “ I ’m king of the Puerto Ricans ” was all he would say in English .
“ Mr. B. , I ’m lead to admit you to the hospital , ” I finally said .
His conjuration stopped . He turn to me , his eyes glow with pious fury . “ You desire to make me a striver , so I will work for you . ”
“ You wo n’t be a striver , ” I say . “ You ’ll be here until you tranquillise down . ”
“ You Nazi . God will make you pay for this . ”
I ’d tap into his past — and the generator of his madness .
“ King of the Puerto Ricans , ” excerpted from Bedlam ’s Door : truthful Tales of Madness and Hope by Mark Rubinstein , MD ( Thunder Lake Press ) . © Mark Rubinstein . you could take aninterview with the author here .
PsychologyScience
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , scientific discipline , and civilisation news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , delivered to your present .
