Just Sad

A man came by here today –70s, Jewish, disheveled, dirty clothes, toothless, wearing an Eagles hat and puffy Nike jacket. He also had a hospital bracelet on. He said he was an investigator and wanted me to do a book and movie based on a case he had — something about a Catholic nun who was trying to solve the mystery of his wife’s rape and was then killed by a hit-and-run driver because she’d gotten too close to the truth. I listened to him talk for about 20 minutes, and the narrative became less and less cohesive. He told me if I worked on the story with him, it would be published by Good Housekeeping and William Morris would make it a book and then a movie and I would star. There were so many allegations and threads of things and names of people and endless streams of slights and grievances and TV-movie-style true-crime horrors. But everything kept coming back to the murder of this nun.

In the past, I might have been more inclined to indulge someone like this — clearly mentally ill — for more time. But I learned while working at Horizon House that the best thing you can do with a person like that is to redirect him. I tried to do that several times, asking if he’d gone to synagogues, though I know if this man showed up a number of local temples they’d just want him the hell out of there.

I suggested numerous social service agencies, asked if he had a caseworker, asked if he had a safe place to live. I tried to turn the conversation to practical matters. He would not be redirected, and ultimately I just had to tell him I wouldn’t do the story. He said he was disappointed in me, that he thought I could be counted on to help given that I’d written about mental illness in the past, though that wasn’t the story he was pitching. I hated to cut him off, but it’s sort of like a break-up: the cleaner the break, the better.

I came back to my desk and thought about how people must see him, given that he’s going around and pitching this “story” to every reporter and newspaper in town. People hear about delusions and they assume it’s all crazy bullshit. But there are always elements of truth within the delusions. In this case, I did a quick Google search for Sister Paul, and there it was: She had been killed by a hit-and-run driver in 2006 at exactly the intersection he mentioned and by the car he described with such specificity. He was also correct about the reward offered for the offender, who’s still at large.

He said he’d had a close relationship with this nun, who had probably been one of the few people to reach out to him without judgment. In the Daily News account of Sister Paul’s death by Ronnie Polaneczky, the Sister’s brother said: “Mercy was like that. She just wanted people to feel loved.”

To see a video news report about Sister Paul’s death, click here. There’s no real reason to watch it, I guess, except to honor Mr. Greenblatt and the nun who cared about him.

liz | 11:22 AM | Uncategorized