Part 4 (1/2)

In the backyard, I put oing to fly Mary Eliza had the highest tree house in the neighborhood I tightened the knot in my cape and took off up the ladder I climbed up to the tree house and then pulled e of the shi+ngles and looked down The tree house was high, far above the basketball goal Too far to fall I needed to fly In my pocket, I found the pill and bit into it It was bitter and dry I sed all that I could and e of the roof I bent my knees and let y pill, and the full belief I could do anything I putmy arms out and dove off the tree house roof

In the doctor's office, my mother told the nurse about the accident Then she whispered, ”And he took one of ave me instructions for a urine sample and handed me a plastic container In the er I could have filled it three times

”My!” the nurse said, carefully taking possession of the overflowing container

”I gotrooer container She kissed the top of s Don't ever forget that”

Jimmy Harris

CHAPTER 12

My plan to write an expose about the convicts and the leprosy patients fit perfectly with my mother's early vision for reat piece of journaliset more of Ella's story I had seen her in the hallways and a few tiuard was close by I would have to catch her alone e both had plenty of time to talk

In the meantime, I had met another leprosy patient, Jimmy Harris, who talked nonstop He had been sent to Carville in 1938 He riting his own book about life in quarantine and was happy to talk about it to anyone ould listen He had already picked a title, King of the Microbes King of the Microbes Jiht curvature of the spine Except for a claw hand, he looked perfectly norhty-two years old

Ji in 1937 His father was hosting a barbecue Later that night, as Jimmy undressed and removed the short pants he had worn that day, he noticed a spot on his leg A clean spot Although the rest of his leg was covered in fine Texas dirt, none adhered to the oval on his thigh Jins of leprosy because his brother, Elmer, had been stricken with the disease four years earlier

”You lose your ability to perspire,” Jireat authority ”I knehat I had, but I went to see a doctor anyway Took my 1931 Chevy Coupe over to Beaumont That sucker would fly” Then he went on to talk about horsepower and cylinders and other mechanical stuff He seemed more interested in automobiles than leprosy

I made notes on Jimmy's stories, and I recorded conversations I overheard in the cafeteria between the other leprosy patients They called the to thenoses, lost families, and the heartbreak of love affairs What I didn't hear in the cafeteria, I discovered in the books from the library

In the 1850s, Carville was called Island, Louisiana The land ned by Robert Camp Indian Caar plantation, but it was abandoned when Camp lost his fortune after the Civil War The plantation sat in disrepair, unoccupied for thirty years, before the State of Louisiana leased the land in 1894 The 360-acre plot, along with a decaying nated as the Louisiana Leper Home After that, all lepers in Louisiana were sent to the reraphy was perfect for outcasts The plantation was virtually impossible to reach by land: a washed-out road with no outlet, leading to a tiny drop of land that looked like gravity had pulled it into the river's path It was known priree turn in the Mississippi River just south of Baton Rouge

In the early days, doctors and nurses were reluctant to co water, little sanitation, and no budget for is with snakes and bats

A compassionate physician from Tulane who had studied leprosy traveled to the East Coast to recruit an order of nuns to provide care for the leprosy patients In 1896, the first of the Sisters of Charity arrived at the colony

A series of bizarre events that began in 1914 altered the course of the colony's history and led to its establishment as the national leprosarium John Early, a veteran of the Spanish-Anosed with leprosy in 1908 A native of North Carolina, Early had been quarantined in a series of teton, DC, where he was imprisoned in a tent on the Pototon transferred him to a colony in Massachusetts, but authorities there refused to accept hi boxcars, ramshackle houses, and jails No state or territory would permanently accept him within its province In late 1914, after six years of provisional quarantines, Early checked hiton, DC, where it was rumored the vice president and several senators had also established residence He invited the Washi+ngton Titon Tiather in his roo the powerful, if he demonstrated in a very public e could walk a healthy citizens, a national home for victims of the disease would not be far behind It took several years of public appearances for Early's dreaislation authorizing 250,000 for the care and treatment of people afflicted with leprosy They would be transported free to a yet-to-be-established US leprosarium Four years later, Carville was chosen newspaper editor and other reporters to gather in his roo the powerful, if he demonstrated in a very public e could walk a healthy citizens, a national home for victims of the disease would not be far behind It took several years of public appearances for Early's dreaislation authorizing 250,000 for the care and treatment of people afflicted with leprosy They would be transported free to a yet-to-be-established US leprosarium Four years later, Carville was chosen

Before the establishment of a national leprosarium, lepers were at the ade posse ofto protect their faated froeneral public in jails or dilapidated homes known as pesthouses Not unlike the bells and clappers of biblical tins were attached to the pesthouses to warn citizens of the danger of infection Those eren't forced into quarantine lived in fear of mobs that threatened their fanosed with leprosy, unafflicted relatives often fled to avoid neighbors ould ostracize spouses and children There idespreadMany still believed that leprosy was a disease of the soul, that the victim had been stricken by God for misdeeds

Early intended to secure a hoht about an unintended consequence: a new national policy of segregation tantah the new policy of mandatory confinement came from federal law, it was enforced by local officials Enforce on the fears, biases, and s of state and county law enforcement officials Soht to Carville in shackles Others were locked in jail cells until paid couriers, souns, could be hired to transport them to the leprosarium In some states, if multiple faht be torched An infected child's toys, clothes, and books were incinerated Parents were forcibly removed from their children Children were pulled from the arms of their parents

Fear of the disease was so rampant that arrivals at Carville took on new naentlee nineteen and was later confined at Carville, wrote that he felt like ”an exile in his own country”

If there were any bright spots in the early history, it was the Sisters of Charity The nuns were dedicated to the physical and spiritual co to patients' accounts, the nuns' kindness was the saving grace of the colony One sister who arrived at the turn of the century told the patients she would never use the term ”leper” to describe them Instead she called them ”my friends”

Over the decades the residents at the leprosarium sponsored Mardi Gras parades, launched their own publications, organized a patient federation, Boy Scout troops, a softball team, and even a Lions club The stories amazed me-as did the history of the leprosariuued I became with this extraordinary community of people who established their own rituals and traditions

But the disease itself was even more evocative One of the reference books that piqued my interest was an illustrated raphs I carried it with me around the colony, but I was careful about when and where I studied it I kept it hidden between two notebooks

In graphic and shocking candor, the photographs depicted the effects of leprosy at progressively severe stages The patients at the beginning of the book, the ones identified as having the most irowth, es and noses, I saw pustules and swollen faces, lumpy protrusions on the ears and forehead, torsos covered with red lesions At the back of the es became more and nosis called lepromatous leprosy, lepromatous leprosy, had feet so deformed and twisted I couldn't tell if the toes had disappeared or if they had been grafted together Noses were virtually nonexistent Appendages were so disfigured that a from a rare form of leprosy called had feet so deformed and twisted I couldn't tell if the toes had disappeared or if they had been grafted together Noses were virtually nonexistent Appendages were so disfigured that a from a rare form of leprosy called Lucio's phenoe holes in their flesh that looked like their skin had been eaten away to the bone by parasites Their faces were scarred, consue holes in their flesh that looked like their skin had been eaten away to the bone by parasites Their faces were scarred, consu inhuman

Black boxes were superimposed over their eyes to protect their identities, but Carville was home to the very last leprosy patients in North America I assumed some of the patients here must have been featured in this book

But the most worrisome revelation about leprosy-confirmed by Doc and the reference books-was that no one was certain how the disease was transmitted, no vaccine existed to prevent the spread, and no test was available to determine as naturally immune and as susceptible

CHAPTER 13

My menu board illustrations had become popular with the leprosy patients They especially liked my President Clinton caricatures So I added ans to each day's board When the meal included Cuban Chicken, I sketched a portrait of Fidel Castro s a chicken by the neck On Mexican Day, I designed the text to fit inside a large soan, ”Make a run for the border” The inht it was pretty funny; it didn't aet a ju duties, I started to transcribe theroom every day after lunch As I wrote on the board one afternoon, I heard a voice behind ave us one who can spell!” A gaunt blacka hat and a khaki coat reached out to shake my hand ”I'm Harry,” he said with a crooked s through the screen on es-a coits looked like they had been absorbed or maybe burned off He seemed friendly I didn't want to reject him, especially since my own hand had been twice refused But I didn't want to touch hier and shake? Put rab on?

He noticed my hesitation Harry's smile disappeared He put his hand back in his coat pocket ”You've got real neat handwriting” He sain and told me to have a nice day I looked around the roolances and shook their heads As I watched Harry walk away, I knew I had hurt his feelings I wanted to call hiize, and accept his hand

But it was too late

Little Neil, Maggie, androom deck

CHAPTER 14

”May I please please borrow your iron?” I asked again borrow your iron?” I asked again

CeeCee had no intention of giving up her iron CeeCee was a federal inmate, too, but she insisted that we use fe to, or about, her CeeCee's shi+rt collar was turned up around her thin neck The top four buttons on the tight green shi+rt were left open to reveal ould have been cleavage had she been a woinations would fill in the rest CeeCee had altered her prison-issued slacks to look like capri pants

”nobody touches my iron,” CeeCee said, with a hand cocked on her hip

My shi+rts rinkled, and Linda and the kids would arrive in the visiting room in less than an hour for our first visit