E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-09-836761-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz
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CHAPTER 1 -
As the Gum Falls My gums fell off my teeth today...well...not the top teeth, just the bottom ones. I got myself together enough this morning to brush my teeth, only to find in the mirror the awful sight of fallen gums. At first, I thought my imagination was running amok again; for only a few months ago, I was walking on the moon from having a bad reaction to an antipsychotic drug my psychiatrist had prescribed. The songwriter Jimmy Webb certainly composes truth in his lyrics: “The moon is a harsh mistress...though she looks as warm as gold...the moon can be so cold...the sky is made of stone.” I first heard that tune on a Linda Ronstadt album from the early Eighties, the same album for which she received negative reviews because her vocals were electronically altered to mask some off-key singing. Thanks for the warning, Mr. Webb; I’m going to stay far away from the moon, as best I can, from here on out. Fortunately, a nurse named Georgia was there for me the night of my scary moonwalking, when I was living in the main house of this mental institute. She held my hand so that I could remain somewhat tethered to Earth. I realized Georgia was an angel when I first encountered her upon my arrival here, near the end of 1990. This non-conformist Northern California mental hospital in the middle of Wine Country has been my home for almost half a year now. God only knows what I would have done if I hadn’t met Georgia my first night here. I wasn’t able to be alone for a minute back then. My world had fallen away in one brief moment and I could no longer cope on my own. Panic attacks, flashbacks, and unbearable psychic pain were near-constant and so all-consuming that even the most basic functions--eating, bathing, changing clothes--were excruciatingly challenging. Georgia slept in a bed next to me that first night. She pushed two twin beds together and held my hand until I fell asleep. Georgia assured me I was going to be all right, but I didn’t believe her. I didn’t remove any of my clothes (refusing even to take off my down jacket) for three whole days. Georgia left about a month ago. She liked to tell me about her desire to go live alone in the middle of the desert somewhere in New Mexico. The first few weeks I was here, I begged her, “Please don’t leave just yet!” I suppose she was in her sixties. She was diminutive with blue-grey hair. Georgia’s main goal in life was to retire. Fortunately, by the time of her departure, I had transferred my dependence upon her to a stuffed animal that I found in the big padded room they have at the main house. I was allowed to keep the furry thing for myself. I named him “Cal” (short for California). He is a black and white cow. I take him almost everywhere with me, even into the bathroom. When Georgia left, she gave me a black-and-white yin-yang earring of hers for Cal to wear. I pierced the lobe of his left ear. He didn’t mind too much. He loves wearing the earring. (Cal believes he looks very hip.) Thankfully, the ocean of tears that daily roared from my eyes had subsided by the time Georgia made her grand exit. I miss her so much. Her motherly, unconditional love was something I had never before experienced from any woman. I still have crying jags, but they’re not as bad as they were when they first started. Panic attacks are my main concern these days. I’m afraid I won’t be able to function in the real world once I leave this place. ******************** A few days after my arrival, I was introduced to the staff psychiatrist. Interrupting me as I was telling him my history, he labeled me with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. I said, “What? I can’t possibly have post-traumatic stress. I’ve never been to Vietnam.” Ol’ Razor Lips (that’s my secret name for him, my own invention, because his lips are so thin they’re practically nonexistent) said, “Believe me, if half the things you told me about the abuse you endured at the hands of your family and peer group are true, then I would be shocked were you to live out your life without eventually falling ill to the travails of post-traumatic stress.” (Or at least...that’s what I think he said. I don’t always understand him. Razor Lips’ language gravitates toward the dramatic.) I banged down my fists on the arms of the chair I was sitting in. I told him, “I minored in psychology in college, and the only reference to post-traumatic stress I ever read was connected with war. Why didn’t anyone tell me this could happen? Why wasn’t I warned? How was I supposed to know? If I knew, I could have made different choices. I could have created better safety nets around me. I would have prepared, so I wouldn’t have ended up in a place like this!” I was fuming. My diaphragm was twisting into a tight Gordian knot. I bit my lower lip so hard it bled. ******************** Right before my breakdown, I thought my struggle of living for thirty-two years was finally paying off. I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with a spectacular view overlooking Lake Union, in the Queen Anne section of Seattle. I had never lived in a more beautiful place. At night, the boats paraded around the lake all lit up like Christmas trees, every night of the week. As a child, back in my hometown on the Jersey Shore, I witnessed such beauty only one night per year. The event in southern Jersey was called “Night in Venice.” Usually occurring near the end of July, the evening was a big tourist attraction. Boats, lit up with Christmas lights, paraded by the docks of the bay. Candy was thrown from the boats to joyous spectators standing on the wooden planks of the piers. In Seattle, the magical aquatic spectacle (minus the candy) happened every night of every week. I had a glorious deejay job in Seattle at a humongous bar, Timberline. So great a manifestation of pulchritude was Timberline that the city named it an official landmark. To change the bar in any way was against city ordinance. Timberline looked more like a temple than a bar. The building was formerly a Sons of Norway meeting hall, with vaulted ceilings, ornate interior columns, and a magnificent wall-to-wall wooden dance floor. The country-western dancers were exquisite, of great skill and flair. The sight of men dancing together, arm-in-arm, was pure bliss. In the mighty Northwest, the indigenous peoples’ artwork--the ruddy wood carvings and colorful totem poles--delighted and inspired me. I was living out my dream of being in the same places that were portrayed in David Lynch’s TV series Twin Peaks. I couldn’t imagine how life could be any better. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Going up to Snoqualmie to breathe in the mist of the waterfall filled up every one of the starving, empty crevices of my psyche. Going down to Puget Sound to feel the wet sting of sea air in my face, I would close my eyes and let the wind transport me beyond time, beyond space, to a nonexistent place with no name, where all my senses were alive beyond measure with ecstatic joy that vitalized my entire being. But then, in one moment, without warning, my heaven of a Seattle turned into a place of hellacious torment. The backlog of emotions I had held back for thirty-two years flooded out of me like an angry, violent tsunami. Happening on the day of a full moon, while cleaning the living room of my prized apartment, my knees buckled in a split second, for no reason, as what flowed from my eyes covered the floor. I cried never-ending tears as I crawled from one room to another. Even though, just moments before, I was enjoying the rarity of a cloudless Seattle day, everything around me was quickly turning dark, gloomy, threatening, and more and more horrific. I looked out from the glass door of my balcony onto the lake below. What had previously been peaceful and delightful now looked turbulent and dangerous. The water that had been a beautiful blue now looked like wet charcoal. Yet, with not a cloud in sight, the sun was still shining; only now, the light was, inexplicably, shining through a filter of lugubrious darkness, rendering my surroundings a terrifying chiaroscuro. I had no idea what was happening. I couldn’t find an explanation. What had been real was now unreal. I was more scared than I had ever been. I switched on the television in an attempt to reorient my senses, to shift myself back to some normality. However, the talk show that appeared on the screen provided no relief. I couldn’t focus my eyes. When I closed them, I saw a chaotic, kaleidoscopic vision of purples and indigoes. The cyclone within me wouldn’t stop seizing up inside my guts, past my heart, and through my eyes. I chanted to myself, “Whatever it is, it’ll stop eventually. No one cries forever. No one can cry forever. I’ll eventually cry myself out and then I’ll be able to figure out what has happened to me.” By nightfall, my tears were still flowing. They soaked my pillow, top to bottom, and flowed into my mattress until I finally fell into unconsciousness. In the morning, I awoke to the sound of someone banging on my bedroom window--probably my crusty old landlady, once again making known her negative opinion of the makeshift cardboard “curtains” that I had put up to keep the morning light from invading my bedroom. (Working nights, I didn’t want the sun to wake me up too early.) I was happy that I had stopped crying, but still, under my blanket, I was shaking. I wasn’t shaking because I felt cold. I was shaking because I couldn’t stop shaking. Unfortunately, not much time passed before the rising tide of emotion welled up in me once again. I thought I should call someone. I...
