The Martin-Baker Fan Club - 66

A mental patient in the war stress recovery unit, Dick LaCroix, began not taking his medications due to provocation by another patient. He stood by a window, that he had pried free, reliving his "ejection" from a burning plane and "ejected" from the window before an attendant could notice. Harm was asked to defend, again, the "provocateur" now being charged with murder, Roscoe Martin, the "accordion playing, paraplegic, former POW who skewered his Vietcong captor on a Georgetown street." Chegwidden wouldn't, at first, allow H the time off until he observed that "he represents the 1/2 million who were defined by that war." C recalled the Commander of his old SEAL platoon who was hospitalized after starting to talk to himself. C took him some board games but found him drowsy from drugs. Two months later he had completely stopped communicating, was bedridden and in diapers, and the board games had never been touched. Mac agitatedly advised H that he was "trading one obsession (finding father) for another." The prosecution said that LaCroix had psychosis and needed meds and that Martin had paranoid personality disorder and was the most disruptive patient. H pointed out that LaCroix had begun speaking ONLY to Martin- who was trying to badger him into "taking back his life." He pointed out that the hospital had undergone a 20% budget cut: decreased staff and programs, and increase in use of meds. The psychiatrist offered that the meds were only resulting from patient behavior. H retorted "Oh, they weren't responding to reduced treatment?" The attendant, Mr. Oakley, said that he saw Martin watching LaCroix jump from the back of the room. Martin became angry claiming it wasn't true then was awakened in the night thinking Oakley was in his room trying to intimidate him.

Martin introduced H to "his gang," Chodocowsky, Mike Brookhurst- both from Vietnam; and Dastuge, a Cajun from the Gulf. Martin, played his accordion for background music, while he asked H to put him on the stand to carry the voices of these men into the courtroom, sharing his dream… to be free to choose… Hallelujah. H seized an opportunity to badger his own client into making an emotional representation of his beliefs in freedom of choice. "The tragedy of LaCroix," he said, "wasn't his death. It was the price he paid for serving his country." H talked with Oakley at the hospital as he was putting away some restraints used on a patient. Oakley said "he had his disagreements with management." The when H pushed him retaliated with "you don't think someone with my skin color (black) understands what it means to have too much power over others?!" Martin "lost it" in court, so that H had to take him out, then said "I wasn't paranoid until I went to this hospital. The patients are the victims!" H told him that the only way out was to pursue the insanity defense. Martin dismayed that it would "make his issues meaningless," and that "they'll drug me!" That night, Oakley resigned and told Martin that he probably was mistaken about who was watching that night. He opened the locked door and said "now that we are both leaving, perhaps we can see more clearly." M came to Hs apartment with some defense strategies. She gave a mineral water toast with a Russian blessing taught to her by Rusza (Hs stepmother): "may angels appear at your door step." At that time, Martin appeared with two of his Gang and asked to have his car to get to a relative in Canada. While trying to talk them into going back a cop came to the door looking for them. The two went down the back stairs but Martin, in a wheelchair, stayed. Brookhurst appeared with a pizza and a gun. He fired it to scare the cop away which merely brought more SWAT types. Mike fired his weapon again and the SWAT stormed in with H standing right in the middle. H talked Brookhurst into putting down the gun. Martin put down his accordion as well and a trigger happy SWAT shot him, unarmed, twice. H talked to him in the hospital where, now, he was on a respirator and without use of any limbs. Martin gave H his accordion. H said "you're a man with something to say. I keep going wrong with you assuming you need my advice when all you ever wanted was my ear." H said that Martin's issues were on the table and promised "never to refuse to defend any person who had been denied the freedom of his own mind." The other two "gang" visited and Martin told them to go to Canada. They put Martins flag in his mouth and watched as he used it to flick off the respirator switch, "ejecting."

Throughout the episode Bud was obnoxiously concerned over Harriet not exerting herself because she was pregnant. Sliding a coffee table she "felt a pop" but wouldn't accept Hs offer of help. Later B found her doubled over weeping in abdominal pain and took her to the hospital. The doctor said that the pain was due to low hormone levels and gave her a shot and meds. They saw the baby's heartbeat on a monitor.


Orderly Oakley lied about seeing Martin in the room; then resigned leaving door unlocked so Martin left w/ 3 other patients he was taking to Canada - stopping off at Hs. One grabbed gun and when SWAT came H had to step in the middle. SWAT shot Martin and totally paralyzed him. Not able to move arms he gave his accordion to H; then took his flag between his teeth and turned off his own respirator to "eject" from quadriplegia (Martin Baker was inventor of the ejection seat). Ht in hospital ER w/ "hormonal imbalance" thinking she had strained moving coffee machine and was loosing her baby.