Which meant that no one else on the nursing staff was going to sit in the room while our assigned psychiatrist interviewed new patients who had been admitted over the weekend. So it was me, and the doctor, and people in varying degrees of stress, dysfunction, psychosis, mania and/or agitation. Often times, the longer the initial interview took, the greater the degree of agitation became. The word we used for it was "escalation." Our assigned psychiatrist was a master at promoting escalation.
His favorite question, part of his every intake interview, was "do you have insurance?"
If the answer was yes, the hapless individual was shortly listed on all hospital records as a "private" patient, and billed separately for any and all provided services on every available occcasion . . .
Then the phone rang. I hated it when the phone rang. It meant that something was going wrong on the other side of the door that no one out there could deal with, and it meant that while I was on the phone, I couldn't give my full attention to what was going on in the room, which was usually an already agitated individual engaged in "escalating" behavior, provoked by our insurance seeking psychiatrist.
So, reluctantly, I answered the phone. "Is this Bruce Warner?"
Yes, it is.
 |
| This is Bill Ballantine . . . |
Bill Ballantine. Author, artist, former clown, current Dean of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College. Calling me! CALLING ME! Could it be . . . ?
Within days after Dick Brown had me escorted out, I had filled out and mailed a new application to RBB&B CC. No one had contacted me when I applied in 1975.
Now, almost a year later, BILL BALLANTINE was on the other end of the phone!
BILL BALLANTINE, Dean of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College was the other party in a conversation with ME! This could only mean one thing . . .
I'm going to Clown College!
I dropped the phone.
I didn't pick it up. I got down on the floor, crawled under the desk where the phone had landed and continued the conversation from there. Yes. Yes! YES! I not only am still interested, I can be there this afternoon!!!
Which wasn't necessary, as class didn't start until September. I got all the information, and thanked him, and hung up. Then I crawled out from under the desk, said good bye to the psychiatrist and the now thorougly agitated, escalated patient, and left the room. I went next door to the office, saw my supervisor sitting there and gave two weeks notice . . .
Her immediate concern was that I wouldn't try to use up all my accumulated sick and vacation time over the next two weeks. The day before I left, the other staff threw me a going away party . . .
There was fried chicken, and country ham, and mashed potatoes and gravy, and sweet potato pie and corn bread and three of four different kinds of greens and a whole banquet of incredible food, all laid out on six or seven adjustable tables in one of the empty patient rooms. There was enough to feed all the staff, and probably 3/4 of the patients as well. I asked Nurse Wright, my favorite other employee, the one whose guidance had proven invaluable during my year in Jacksonville, why there was so much --
"Well," she replied, "we're not like you. When we have a party, we don't like to have to stop on the way home to get something to eat . . ."
It was then that I noticed the lone bedside stand in the corner by the patient restroom with a small bag of Ruffles and a plastic container of Lipton Onion Soup Dip. Next to it on a three by five index card, perfectly hand lettered, were the words "White People Food!"
I don't think I ever laughed that hard before . . .
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