When the doctor again tried to persuade Jimmy to come with them to the hospital, Jimmy turned to his friends and asked, “What do you think I should do?” It was Joe, according to Kenward’s recollection, who “took command” and was finally able to persuade Jimmy to get into the police car. John rode to the hospital with Jimmy, acutely uncomfortable, and struck by the pathos of the situation, which reminded him of the last scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, when Blanche DuBois is finally persuaded by “the kindness of strangers” to go off to a mental institution. During the drive Jimmy turned to him and said, “John, you do believe that I’m the Resurrection and the Life, don’t you?” “Sure,” said John.
For Kenward, the breakdown, “horrible” as it was, was also in a way “an enormous relief” after his tense anticipation of it for the preceding two weeks. Writing shortly afterward to Ron Padgett, Kenward admitted, “This has been an ‘awful’ happening … that kind of intensity is demonic, and one can’t survive with it. Not for long. Or unless one has incredible experience & training, to get one accustomed to it.”
