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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781426937668 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 181 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Mom's Idea
By Nathan Smith
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2010 Nathan SmithAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-3744-6
Chapter One
Let me start right in the middle. It was Christmas in the inner city, but there was not much joy in the air. I was living in the center of the inner city near the jail. It was the sort of place, I quickly found out, where you never walked on the sidewalk at night, and during the daylight, you never talked to passers by. If you're lucky, no one would rob and beat you. Of course you had to be white for it to be that way. It wasn't that it happened everyday; it was that everyday I lived in fear of it happening. When it did happen, it was terrifying and shocking. I feared every day.My roommates were all mentally ill like I was. But living there gave us the chance to live somewhere where it was possible to go without taking our medications. The landlady didn't care as long as the disability benefits kept coming in regularly. She would cash our checks, give us the amount left over after rent and board, and never complained about what we did as a treatment plan. Back then I believed that the government would keep sending my check no matter what, because I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I found out a few years later that even if someone was mentally sick, as I was, and not taking medications and seeing a doctor regularly, that the government would claim that I no longer needed their financial help.
We were living there, drinking every day, and the landlady provided breakfast and dinner. I was eventually thrown out of a nearby bar for being intoxicated, but there were still plenty of drinking establishments who would serve me. I also did a good amount of drinking at the house where we all lived because it was too expensive to always drink at bars.
One Sunday I was walking back around the corner from where I lived, and a big man, a black man, wrestled me to the ground and went through my pockets. I didn't have much. When he had taken everything, fortunately for me, he left me alone to get up and walk away.
The roommate I had in my room, not just in the house, was a very tough old black man. We came to an understanding that if I did not speak to him while we were both in the room, he wouldn't bother me. Four of the men living there were white, but everywhere else for square miles around, the neighborhoods were all black. We stood out like sore thumbs. By the experiences I had, I figured that the muggers believed they never could be found in the huge numbers of black people in the area. It would be impossible for them to be caught. I also came to believe that there was no conscience in the minds of our tormentors, because we were the ones who were trespassing on the inner city harmony and peace. There had to be something wrong with us to live there.
Mom and her husband came down into the city to give me some Christmas presents that year. When they got here, they couldn't find me right away. Mom had a cigarette lighter, which was all she had for light to find me by. She walked up the stairs to my room. I was not there, but in the dark, a voice shouted out, "What are you doing here?" She was scared, but really didn't know how much danger there was around her.
When they finally found me, I didn't want the presents, and I asked her to go back home and leave me. The months of not taking my medications and drinking had affected my brain, so I was rude and didn't appreciate their love and support. When the time came, I would finally ask for their help to move out of there to someplace safer.
For years I had accepted on faith that I should take my medications and that also I should stop drinking. I usually took the medications as prescribed, but I did not have as much luck with the drinking. I needed to experiment to see if I could drink and exist without medications.
I went out early one Sunday morning to attend church. It was a half-mile through the southern end of the inner city, where rows and rows of black families lived. The church service started at 6:00 AM, so it was quite early. As I neared the middle of one particular block, a figure started towards me. I didn't think anything was wrong, but then he kept on coming toward me; I got really scared. He reached out and grabbed my arm. I swung around twice, with him trying to rob me. Finally his hand broke free, and I started running as fast as I could to the end of the neighborhoods. He started after me. I was still scared. I ran as fast as I could, until finally I was past the hospital into a white neighborhood. He stopped and went back, presumably because he was a afraid he'd be discovered. It was a truly good feeling to know that I was safe. It was stupid to go out that early, even to go to church, but I kept going, hoping Jesus would save me. The man never approached me again.
After a few weeks, the damage to my mental state from the robbery started to heal. I thought this was all there was, and that I was free. I was wrong about that though, which I will include later in this account.
Despite the trouble appearing to be over at least briefly, things were, in general, very desperate. I wasn't doing anything positive in my life, just drinking and watching the days go by. Every month I would walk five miles to where my father worked, I would ask him for twenty dollars, and he would give it to me. I did this at the end of each month when my check would be gone, to tide me over until the beginning of the next month. If I drank at home mainly, this would do ok, but the drinking really ate up my small monthly income.
Mom and her husband went to Italy after Christmas to see the Roman ruins and the lovely cathedrals. In my mental state, worsened by the crimes I had suffered, I began to blame my family, including my mother, for my situation. Day after day, my mind deteriorated. In addition to the paranoia, I kept hallucinating very strange things. The birds and insects chirping hour after hour became an audio hallucination that there were white women who were looking for me, but somehow they had been taken in and captured by the next door neighbor. He was raping them in my mind, and the chirping was the sound of his thrusts into them and back out again. I thought there was a big problem.
I called the police and reported it. I was not in contact with reality. I think the police must have been trained to deal with mental illness, because nothing became of it, or at least not yet.
Chapter Two
My mind kept deteriorating such that soon I began to believe that my parents were also trying to kill me. I thought they were living it up while I was suffering in this difficult situation. They had put me into the mental hospital a few years before. I was horrified. It was so painful emotionally to think that I was ill in my mind and that I would never be successful. I had even tried suicide because of this after my second hospitalization. Fortunately, I didn't have the courage to go all the way, and only swallowed an amount of medications that was not lethal. This was the crowning glory of my absolute misery and discouragement. It had to be true, I thought; why else would I be there, except if they were trying to kill me. I was the ugly duckling who ruined the family image. All of this, of course, was not true.I even called the FBI and told them my parents were trying to kill me.
I'm sure now that this only meant to them that I was mentally ill and needed a psychiatrist.
All through these times my mother kept hoping and wanting a better life for me. She hadn't put me down there in the inner city, and neither had the rest of my family. It was truly bizarre how my mind was getting sicker and sicker. I was so miserable that I didn't even know I was miserable. To land there, in the city, I had left a nice apartment and day clinic behind, simply because there were two rules there which I didn't want to follow. First we had to take medication as prescribed, and secondly, no drinking.
You can imagine that someone without the usual responsibilities of life, while feeling sorry for myself due to the brain disease which I had, really liked to drink. And it was true to a point. When I was drunk, I didn't think about the terrible disease; I didn't think about failure. I couldn't perceive what my real situation was and how I could be happy if I accepted it.
Today, however, I played golf. The weather was beautiful. I had on great looking golf clothes and had an enjoyable round. After that I came to Mom's house and had a little lunch. What has happened to get me to this point from that ghastly situation down in the inner city? Let's say, it was mom's idea. She was the only one who kept pushing and prodding to make me realize how much good there was in the world and how I could live properly and enjoy life. Part of this was taking medications every day and abstaining from alcoholic beverages. I never thought I could do it, but today I have three years and almost seven months without a drink, and I take my medications.
Let's go back again to those bitter times, talk about what happened to me, retrace the steps I took that landed me first in the inner city, and see what finally led me to where I am today.
Drinking was denial, so one day I took all the dollars I had in my pocket and went to the city instead. This one decision started the real downward spiral that got me to the inner city. I walked the streets that afternoon; soon afternoon turned into night. The only thing I could do was to walk around the city, all night long and hope for morning to come fast.
The next day I inquired about where the homeless shelters were. The nicest one I could find was open from about 5:00 PM until 7:00 AM. Everyone was lined up for a block or so waiting for the doors to open. There we could take a shower. After that, I wanted to go out back and smoke cigarettes until dinner.
Just before the dinner bell though, a fight broke out in the smoking area. Two black men were standing; one stood behind the other, and the one behind held a large knife at the other's throat. Dark, red, blood was coming slowly out of his neck; I went inside as calmly as I could. I had called the police before, but for some reason, this time I was in spell from witnessing this violence. It was so bad that I couldn't even go to the people working there to report it. A day later, I left my overcoat inside, a remnant of the civilized life behind me. I saw someone wearing it when I came back indoors. I didn't dare mention it. He was welcome to it. If he could wear it, there's no telling what he would do if discovered and challenged. I just walked calmly by.
The next day I called my brother, and he tried to get me back in the supervised housing. They said if I went into the hospital for a month I could return, so I went in. The hospital didn't seem as bad after what I'd been through, but it wasn't too long before I started to become as I was before.
After a few days in the hospital, I started to feel uncomfortable. It was, as usual, a locked ward. It was located in the city, but it was like an oasis. They had free soft drinks and black coffee, and they allowed smoking on the ward. Except for the mornings, I smoked and watched television.
After a couple of weeks, one of the nurses took me off the ward and drove me around in her car. I don't know why she did this, and it had never happened to me before. After driving around for an hour, she brought me back to the ward. Nothing happened though, nothing changed inside me, and eventually I was back to where I was before. The days slowly went by until we made plans for my return to the supervised apartment. I didn't really want to be there though. I needed to experiment some more with not taking medications and drinking.
After a few days I walked out to the bus line, and I was gone. I knew that there would be no coming back after all of that, the hospitalization. When I arrived downtown, I went to the nearest bar and sat down. I ordered a beer, and soon it was sliding down my throat. The cool liquid tasted good. Soon, after a few beers, I started to feel good too. The situation I was in faded, and the alcoholic euphoria was there for a while again. I then, as it started getting to be late afternoon, I got up from the stool and headed for the park opposite the homeless shelter. I had plenty of money.
At the park, I sat down. After a few minutes, a big black man started to approach me; I thought at first he was just lonely and wanted to talk. As he came nearer though, he pulled out a large knife. He put the knife right up against my neck and lowered me down on the bench. I intuitively knew not to resist or fight. After I was prone, with him keeping the knife at my throat, he went through my pockets until he found my money. He took it and was gone. So now I was broke again. I had nothing left but the soup they gave out for dinner, with not even enough money for a pack of cigarettes.
I couldn't go back. They wouldn't take me. The next day I went to the soup kitchen that served breakfast. After a morning meal of pork chops and green beans, I asked a staff member there if they knew of anyone who would take in boarders. I still had my social security disability check, and if I could find anybody who would be my representative payee, I could rent a room. Since I was considered at risk of misspending my money on alcohol, it was the rule of social security that someone else must cash my check for me. I could not cash it myself. The lady there at the soup kitchen said she knew of a lady who would be my payee and give me room and board for two hundred dollars a month. That gave me a hundred dollars left to spend where I would.
I was told I could wait there at the soup kitchen after closing, and she would contact the lady who was to be my new landlord. Her name was supposed to be Rose. I waited for about an hour, and then a big busted, slightly overweight black woman with a big smile came through the door. She smiled and held out her hand saying, "You must be Timothy."
She explained everything, and part of it was that I had to take my medications. After this orientation, she drove me over to the house. There were two of the four people who lived there at home. Rose introduced us. She said then just to wait there, and in the morning we would go to social security to arrange for my check to stop coming to the supervised apartment but instead to her.
I borrowed a pack of cigarettes from one of my housemates and just sat around until dinner smoking them, one after another. It was good to be there, even though I was again required to take my medications. At least I didn't have to go to an adult day care center and make crafts or learn more about my illness. It was horrible back there at the apartment. Every day I was reminded that I was ill, and not like everyone else. I was free here to do whatever I liked during the day. Rose told me that, just like the other fellows, I was free to get into any sort of trouble I could as long as I didn't bring any of it back to the house. No guests, no alcohol, and no drugs were allowed on the premises.
Around five thirty, a medium height black man with big muscles and not much fat on him came in carrying food for our dinner. His name was Mark, and he was Rose's assistant. I remember thinking that he was strong enough to handle any of us if we were having a problem. Once, later on, he grabbed someone there, sat them down, and made them take medications. I didn't have a problem taking them after witnessing that event.
The foods were rather simple and inexpensive. Noodles and hot dogs with fruit punch to drink, were the daily menu. I was very hungry that first day, despite breakfast early that morning about 8:30 am. I didn't know then, but I lost fifty pounds eating this stuff over the next two years. It must be a blessing of the poor. They can't afford rich foods, so they don't get fat.
As I lay my head on the pillow that night, with me on the opposite side of the room from Charles, my roommate, I inhaled the sense of a wonderful, new adventure.
Chapter Three
I was there for real; there was no going back. I was in the inner city, miles from everything that I knew. It was all mine, thanks to Mark and Rose. Tomorrow was a big day; Rose and I would get my check squared away, and we'd be established.I awakened to the sound of Mark opening the front door carrying in more food, except it was breakfast this time. He hollered rise and shine. So while the eggs were crackling on the stove, I dressed and went downstairs. I only had one shirt and one pair of pants.
Everyone was seated at their places and took their morning medications. I had to wait until after our trip that morning to buy some of my own at the pharmacy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mom's Idea by Nathan Smith Copyright © 2010 by Nathan Smith. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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