VOLUME X: Mental Health Awareness Day, Jefferson City, Missouri

When they had finished playing, the band members carried their amps and instruments and music stands back to the van, hurrying so they would have time for a picnic lunch on the lawn before having to make the drive back to Fulton. Joe carried an electric guitar, and along the way he lingered, holding the instrument close as if trying to somehow make the moment stay. It was the last day of April, National Mental Health Awareness Day, and the band was leaving a makeshift stage on the steps of the state Capitol in Jefferson City. It was one of several musical groups in attendance, performing in order to do what the banners hanging behind them commanded: "Paint a Different Picture of Mental Illness." The group had begun to prepare for the event weeks earlier, leaving their wards every Tuesday and Thursday morning and walking en masse to the tiny band room next to the gymnasium at the Fulton State Hospital. They worked on the songs they had chosen – "Spanish Harlem," "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," Elton John's "Daniel." Helena sang from her wheelchair, her courage overcoming her shyness a little more each week. Ben moved around the room, playing drums, keyboards and trumpet, showing himself to be a talented musician. Joe took turns at the drums and the vocals while the others played percussion instruments – rain sticks and wooden sticks and tambourines – providing a steady, almost hypnotic beat, a group pulse, holding the band together. Playing in the band is a type of group therapy, used in combination with chemical and talk therapies to treat the members' mental illnesses. Leading from within, playing along with the patients, are therapists Alan Nellis and Susan Groves. They work in concert, Nellis with his remarkable ability to connect and Groves with nearly 30 years of experience and an education from the Harvard of music therapy – The University of Kansas. Their aim is to help the patients achieve a wide variety of goals – to improve their social and communication skills, increase their attention span, practice problem-solving and conflict-resolution and gain a sense of control over their own lives through having successful experiences. When April 30 finally arrived, it was a typical early spring day – cool, blustery, sunny, mercurial – and when the band got up to take its turn on the stage the weather took a marked turn for the worse. The wind picked up, carrying away any sheet music that wasn't clothes-pinned down. Music and microphone stands toppled, and finally even the heavy wooden podium set up for the congressional speeches scheduled for later in the day fell over and crashed down the steps. But all of this was nothing in the face of the band. Ben stood side by side with Alan and played the trumpet duet in "Spanish Harlem." Helena sang "Daniel," and then played the tambourine, catching the drummer's cymbal whenever the wind started to tip it over. The drummer, meanwhile, kept his cool and a steady beat. And when Joe stepped up to the microphone to sing, he looked determined, grasping it firmly in one hand while holding the lyrics tightly in the other. Down on the Capitol lawn, in the concession tent, the lid of a chafing dish went airborne, flying like a killer Frisbee. Paper cups and plates rolled along the grass like tumbleweed, and spectators squinted against the dust and debris. But the band just kept going. At the end of the last song – after what most would perceive as having been an unmitigated disaster – Joe raised his head from the microphone, looked back at the rest of the group and broke into a smile, a look of the sheerest joy. And then, one by one, so did everybody else.