Carl was a Vietnam Vet who had come home from the war living in another universe. He was in and out of Yavapai County jail a few times in my first years working there, typically for being a public nuisance. I don’t believe he ever harmed anyone but he was big, scruffy and dirty-looking and wandered around town in his battered, filthy Army fatigues while being very loud and opinionated.

Carl’s diagnosis was Paranoid Schizophrenia, which does not mean (contrary to what many believe) he had a split or dual personality. It means, in layman’s terms, he had a split with reality, and Carl’s split was a real doozey! It was a chasm, actually, something akin to the Grand Canyon.

It is no wonder to me that Schizophrenics become paranoid. They exist in a world we do not hear or see but one that is all too real to them. If I had to live my days with several unknown (and sometimes well-known) people shouting at me inside my head, or listen to a barrage of demons giving me orders to cut crosses on myself with a tuna can lid, I would be paranoid, too.

They also know people are plotting against them. These people might be Iraqi hit men, or KGB spies, or even our own CIA agents who are trying to force the terrified Schizophrenic to commit a drug deal for them. They know this because they hear the voices talking as plain as day. Voices we can’t hear but voices they can’t get rid of, twenty-four-seven three-sixty-five. They have very distinct memories about aliens and the well-known and dreaded rectal probe, not to mention sexual encounters with the infamous Bat Boy. It has to be a very scary thing. A good percentage of Schizophrenics wind up committing suicide and I’m not sure I blame them.

Some of the voices that entertain them are of a kinder, gentler nature, however. I remember one inmate who was scheduled to see the facility psychiatrist one afternoon but refused to attend the appointment because “the voices are really being funny today.” He was enjoying their company and did not want anything to interrupt the group.

Often the Schizophrenic has a really fascinating life and he will tell you all about it. I’ve known some inmates who (in their minds) were multimillion dollar record producers or financial investors to the President. I even met and got to know the man who invented Plutonium. Really! He told me so. I’ve met Harrison Ford’s brother (Bruce), Howard Hughes’ psychiatrist, and the man who embalmed Elvis. (Yes, alas, it appears Elvis truly is dead). I also met a twenty-year-old girl who kept digging up her dead cat and bringing it to bed with her because, “it got cold at night”. Her poor parents did not know what to do about this and so eventually charged her with criminal littering and had her put in jail where they knew she would get help for her mental health issues one way or another.

It is not all that unusual, actually. Families are often at wit’s end when dealing with schizophrenic children or siblings. It is a frightening disease, which often takes on some violent and weird overtones. If help cannot be gotten from the world outside families will sometimes resort to having the family member arrested, hoping the taxpayers can lend support. We usually do, one way or another, but schizophrenia is a lifelong affliction that is treatable but not curable, and the likelihood of the jail system being there to keep that person safe and off the streets indefinitely is pretty slim.

Carl fell midway between the KGB agents and discovering Plutonium. He was never jovial but he did have times when he seemed to be able to hold a semi-realistic conversation about the voices coming from the TV, (which actually belonged to Walter Cronkite), or what he had had for lunch (sometimes laced with arsenic, but Carl was immune to that poison). He also had a lot of religious dementia. This holds true with a majority of schizophrenics. They almost all have had conversations with God or angels or both and in many cases they actually are God or Jesus or one of the prophets; incognito, of course.

In Carl’s case, when he was on the streets and not in jail, he had an open line to the Almighty, Himself. They discussed a multitude of problems here on earth and Carl was the “One” that God had chosen to help him solve all the tribulations of Mankind. The problem was when Carl was in jail his signal to God was interrupted and they lost contact. There was just too much metal and too many telephonic devices. This was when Carl became hardest to handle.
My father used to tell me, “You cannot have a battle of wits with an unarmed person”, which meant that wasting words on someone who was unable to comprehend them was self-defeating. The officers all tried to get Carl to abide by jail rules, calm down, stop threatening and throwing his meal trays around the room, but when Carl was not connected to God he got pretty irate. He even became dangerous to other inmates. No amount of reasoning or cajoling ever helped, but there was one very clever nurse who invented the cure.

Katie was her name. She had worked in the jail for a while before I got there so she knew the place fairly well. To say Katie was a warm, fuzzy kind of nurse would have been a huge fib. She was caustic, snide, impatient and sometimes close to mean, but she had a way of mind-melding with the mentally ill. I never really understood how, but she really seemed to know what to say to our wacko population at just the right time. (Remember, I told you earlier on that wacko is a medical term.)

At one point during Carl’s first or second visit, Katie grew weary of dealing with his ranting and decided to try and re-establish Carl’s connection to God. There was a large oval chip in the cinder block wall at the side of Carl’s cell that had been stained from someone at an earlier time with red punch. Katie pointed it out to Carl, in whispers of course, and told him that was the Hotline to God, put in only for Carl’s use, and that if Carl told anyone about it, the line would be removed.

“Put your elbow on the red spot,” Katie told him. Carl did that. “Now listen to your thumb,” Carl did that, too, by pressing his thumb into his ear. “Do you hear Him?” Katie asked with a hopeful expression.

I remember the big grin that spread across Carl’s weathered face. His eyes actually took on a glow, “Yeah! I do! I hear Him!” he exclaimed with the joy of a child.

For the next few weeks, and on every visit thereafter, Carl spent most of his days with his elbow pressed up to the hole in the wall and his thumb in his ear. His conversations with God were solemn and lengthy and when they weren’t conversing, Carl spent his time writing down God’s instructions in a commissary notebook. This was, no doubt, for use when he was released and could get back to saving Mankind.

Carl’s visits to the jail stopped rather suddenly and since the last time he was there I saw him around town, now and then, still wearing his Army fatigues and still scaring people with his warnings and prophecies. Evidently the local police decided it wasn’t worth dragging him into jail constantly and began ignoring his antics. Recently, though, he seems to have disappeared completely. Like many other inmates I worked with, I don’t know what happened to Carl. I hope he is all right but there’s no telling. He should be, as long as he keeps his Hotline to God open.