The Enfield Marine units — "Unit #5, kittycorner across the little…"
Unit #5, kittycorner across the little street from Ennet House, is for catatonics and various vegetablish, fetal-positioned mental patients subcontracted to a Commonwealth outreach agency by overcrowded LTIs. […] But in nice weather, when its more portable inmates are carried out and placed in the front lawn to take the air, standing there propped-up and staring, they present a tableau it took Gately some time to get used to. A couple newer residents got discharged late in Gately’s treatment for tossing firecrackers into the crowd of catatonics on the lawn to see if they could get them to jump around or display affect.
Context
The Shed's population and its uses: bodies "carried out and placed" like furniture, and — the theme's cruelty benchmark — residents lobbing firecrackers into the crowd of catatonics to test for affect. Damaged bodies as tableau, then as experiment.