Love and Madness
Love and Madness

by Patricia Obletz


PART I: RUNNING INTO MANIA

CHAPTER ONE



The worst was over.
Summer awaited and, not only would I paint again, I’d find a new employer. Enough of that never-ending hostility between creative and marketing departments, between me and those who wanted my job. Actually, only one of the writers I supervised for Helene Curtis wanted my job. It was a relief to escape from her unpredictable outbursts, vicious attacks, and sloppy work. She just might improve her
performance for my boss Don. After witnessing one of her tirades a week before my surgery, he said that, while I was on leave, he would start documenting any problems he might have with her in the “blue book” that Personnel required, which had to be kept for ninety days before anyone could be fired from any department. I wouldn’t have to deal with her for long once I went back to work, if in fact she did act up in my absence.
Lucky thing to need a partial hysterectomy on June 21, 1981. Even the grinding hot pain of peritonitis that followed was worth it — now. It was only July 11 and I didn’t have to face work again until Tuesday after Labor Day.
My body didn’t hurt anymore, although it was still weak and I still slept most of the time. Best was the fact that Clarence and Blanche, my beloved, honorable parents, had beaten cancer — lymphoma and breast.
I picked up my journal, found my last entry, and read it. I still had last year to write about, beginning with the day Jake Hammer and I were introduced by friends.
Evidently time flew because it was almost eight o’clock and I had yet to eat dinner. I brought my Stauffers fettuccini alfredo and a glass of wine back to my bedroom, turned on the TV and got into bed. After the news I turned out the light, despite the fact it was only ten-thirty and my new Ludlum waited. The next time I looked at my clock, it was eleven-thirty and daylight edged my curtained window.
While breakfasting in bed, I reread yesterday’s entry in my journal. I was blessed in so many ways — financially secure, my own home, a fun love affair, good friends, decent job, and parents who not only practiced the Golden Rule, they unconditionally loved, supported and encouraged my older sister Maggie, younger brother Michael, and me, giving each of us first class private lessons and schools. They were passionate about the visual and performing arts; they supported the arts with their time as well as money. As a child, I thought everyone went to art galleries and museums, and attended classical music concerts with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. In those years I had no idea how special it was that our father played classical music on his Steinway grand piano in the room my parents added on to our house. Sometimes members of the Budapest Quartet or the Buffalo orchestra would join him in that room designed just for this purpose.
Piano lessons had been painful for me, but I finished the year my parents insisted on, which allowed me to concentrate on my passion for horses, and for drawing and painting.
After breakfast, maybe I’d stay awake long enough to haul out my oil paints, brushes and canvas. I could feel my muse stirring in anticipation for the first time in three years. And both of my parents were in remission and Mother, my dear Mither, my fun little Mithe, three inches shorter than I, had played nine holes of golf today for the first time since her first chemotherapy treatment had given her congestive heart failure.
A weight I’d forgotten lifted.
My heart beat faster.
I returned to my journal.
My script shrank to save space, each page with its own train of thought. Fast trains, speeding me into self-sating passion, a hot rush, intoxicating as no external intoxication could be; not wine, not pot, not —
I no longer slept most of the night and day. I didn't need to any longer. I was pain-free and free to write whatever, however, I wanted.
Last night I didn't sleep at all. And I wasn't tired. I could run around the block.
Just before dawn, the notion of sleep disturbed me. I turned off the light and curled up on my side. Thoughts pushed sleep away, again and again. Sleep empowered recuperation, but the last time I'd slept was — I couldn't remember.
I tried Valium. Thirty milligrams did nothing.
Sleep didn’t matter when work didn’t set the alarm. But it would, all too soon. The annual schedule of thirty-two new hair products and promotions was so black with type that just looking at it twisted my gut. From rough to final copy and art, the projects overlapped, and every week had at least one deadline and two crises.
Feeling an unkind kinship with the bottles on the fill line in the factory below my office, I slid out of bed and checked the calendar on the kitchen counter. Sunday was days away. I wrote a note to get the Chicago Tribune and placed it beside my calendar on the counter by the phone. The employment section was almost at hand.
When friends mentioned work I begged them not to — the impending of my return felt like doom. They understood, my dear fine friends, and we spoke of other matters.
My parents called from Florida, my brother Michael and sister-in-law Cindy checked in from Milwaukee. My sister Maggie checked in now and again. Love for them overflowed into phrases, paragraphs, pages, revealing every life I'd lived from infancy on, every track, path, blind alley.
Twelve addresses in three cities: two houses, ten apartments. The houses were in Buffalo, New York, home of my first eighteen years.
The inside and outside of the house we moved into when I was five was a vivid memory. Why couldn’t I remember the inside of the house we'd lived in until then?
My mother would know. Yes. Mithe would know.
But it was three in the morning and, she may be playing half a game of golf these days, but she used to play eighteen. She needed sleep.
Sweat stung my eyes. My heartbeat filled my ears. My tongue became coated and dry, too big for my mouth. Everything inside me felt racy, my head was so light. A new strain of dizziness. I swung my legs out from under the table and my head dropped between my knees.
Five hours separated me from my mother's awakening. Five hours stood between me and my first five years, that match of numbers symbolic, significant, so right. I could wait.
Fear of falling asleep had begun in that house.
The war between Maggie and me had begun in that house. I remembered nothing about the room we shared after Michael’s birth.
My impression of terror in that house grew.
I remembered the night I thought bombs were exploding around us. I’d had a strangle-hold around my mother’s legs, dear Mithe. We were on the front stairs. She’d been hugging me, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Everybody’s celebrating. We won the war in Europe.” We’d huddled on those stairs for what had seemed like hours. I had no sense of my father being there, none of Maggie. Why?
Mother needed sleep. She needed sleep.
The closet Maggie and I tore apart surfaced, the spankings our father meted. The bombs, the closet — why nothing else?
My mother, my Mithe, would want me to call. I had amnesia. I needed help. I had to find my first five years.
The bombs, the closet — my first school, trees rising from lush grass, green lace above one-story, low-slung wooden buildings, fat drippings from leaves in thick falling rain, the splat of their landing slower, softer, less rhythmic than the rain striking my rubber coat; the squish, the squelch of my boots, the tin-throated rush of water through gutters. Why couldn't I remember snow, or sun, or Maggie? She’d been a class or two ahead of me there. Why were there no people in my memory of that school? Why were there no classrooms? I needed — I needed to forget what I'd forgotten and explore what I knew.
Six apartments in eleven years in New York City. Four addresses in six years in Chicago. Only my Victorian condo was spiritually and financially mine, husband for my future. My womb, my fortress, my Sherwood Forest, walls colored from my palette. I so dearly loved my home, matching harmony within me. I’d lost this spiritual sense of physical belonging twenty years ago, when I left for college. But I was again at home, my own forest, my glade, my cave.
I entered my white-framed evergreen living room. Its twelve-foot ceilings were elegant, worth the high heating bills, easy to say in summer. I glanced out the bay windows that overlooked the cul de sac park, the heavy twill sweep of rich dark green window curtains framing views of the Victorian townhouses across the street.
I loved the fireplace behind dark glass doors framed in black metal and brass that took the wall between two windows. I glanced back at my living room as I headed for more coffee, passing between the ceiling-high bookcases that flanked the entrance to the French blue dining room, that color continuing into the galley kitchen, which was twice the size of the ones in my Manhattan rentals, and the one I shared with Gary Murphy after moving to Chicago to live with him in 1975.
I forgave myself for failing to learn why he kept postponing our wedding. I stopped thinking that it had been a mistake not to marry him before switching home base from New York to Chicago. I had to make sure that he wasn’t a hopeless drunk, like my last lover. In about six months, I was ready to marry him. He said he wasn’t ready now, but that someday he would be. Someday didn’t come in two years and I moved into a place of my own. That broken heart didn’t make me suicidal like my first experience with heartbreak, but I drank myself to sleep for a year after that.
It no longer mattered who was at fault.
My body floated above the chair, buoyed by my release from failure. I was so dearly, clearly happy, so whole, so completely complete.
***********************************************************
Journal July 24, 1981


First learn how to tell the difference between lust and love.




CHAPTER Two






Thoughts came too fast.
I was losing my ideas, I — Briefcase.
Bench. Front door.
I retrieved two yellow pads and hurried back to bed. Writing by hand wasn’t fast enough.
The electric typewriter.
Front room closet.
I was torn by the sight of my abandoned art supplies, but need for the machine claimed me. And there it was! I raced with it back to my bedroom and set it in the middle of my bed, between the two yellow pads, topping each with a pen.
Type recorded continuity, the right pad and the left stored ancillary thoughts, facts from the past, hopes for the future.
July 1981: All I need is a little more energy and the artist in me will again rule. Making something out of nothing with help from no one else is the safest place for my passion — except for Jake and —
Something —
I turned off the typewriter. Something was buzzing.
The doorbell.
I hurried to my front door, pressed the intercom’s talk lever and said, "Who's there?"
"Jake."
What? I released the gate, the front door, the door to the stairwell. I opened my second floor door for him, yelled down the stairs that I’d just been thinking about him, that he should get a drink and that I’d be out in minutes. I raced to the bathroom, fearing what I’d find in the mirror. With justification, I discovered. As I washed, the excitement that Jake always aroused in me heated my blood. He was my height, sixty-nine inches, and I loved wearing my highest heels with him. He was stocky, his shoulders broad above the curve of his paunch. His eyebrows were thick and graying over dark eyes that usually danced with fun and passion. His hair twisted into wiry black and gray curls; his nose was blunt and added character to his rosy, round baby cheeks, which usually glowed from strokes of the sun in Las Vegas, Florida, Wisconsin or Chicago, depending on the season. He had an adorable sweet way about him and I loved that he was positive, quick to grasp ideas, and to seize humor. Most of all I loved his introductory claim that he liked his wife and would never leave her. A third broken heart would probably kill me.
Makeup from the medicine chest tumbled out and smashed in the sink.
I scooped up some of the beige liquid and rubbed out the shadows beneath my eyes. I brushed color on my cheeks and stroked my mouth with lipstick.
Better already.
I couldn't force a brush through my hair. In the bedroom, I grabbed my red velour jumpsuit from the closet. At last I found a hat under which to hide tangled locks.
"I'm coming in if you don't hurry up," Jake said, his topsiders slapping my walnut stained floor, heralding his imminent appearance.
We collided in the narrow short hall between the bedrooms. The drinks in his hands splashed his shirt, the floor, me. Our eyes met and we laughed while he set his beer and my wine on the dining table and said, "Let's try that again."
I staggered against him, draped my arms around his neck, returned his kiss. I felt slaphappy silly, like a kid who was up too late.
Jake hugged me and let his hands wander. "Your ribs are naked bone!"
"Da neck bone's connected to da rib bone and da rib bone's connected . . . "
"You can’t afford to lose another ounce. Let's go," he said. He grabbed my hand and led me out.
Our usual stroll down the block quickened; we raced across Wells Street to Sir Loin, the restaurant with walls the evergreen of my living room, a perfect place to be in with the man who fed all my desires.
"Want your usual red wine, shrimp cocktail and steak?" I nodded, surprised that the happy lilt in his voice was missing.
He waved to the waiter and ordered for us. He turned again to me and frowned. His almost pretty lips were thinned by disapproval.
"Your face'll freeze that way," I said, hopefully in a bantering tone.
He must have heard me, yet he didn't respond. His thick neck and shoulders never moved beneath his blue and white checked button-down shirt.
"Hey, Jake-y I'm sorry. Free time makes me — I have to call my mother! I have to call her right now, before I forget again!"
"Why?"
"I can't remember my first five years."
"I can't remember my first ten."
“Ten?"
"Everyone forgets that stuff sooner or later.”
“How can you be so calm about losing your first ten years?”
“What I want to know is how you could forget our date tonight."
He looked earnest when he said that. I wanted to hug him right there and then, but as I rose from my chair, I caught the eye of a stranger. I dropped back into my seat, leaned toward Jake and said, “I’m painting again, my first self-portrait in years! Think about how you feel when you love what you’re doing!"
“Watch that kind of talk or we'll miss dinner — you’re painting again?”
I felt guilty, though I wasn't sure why. Then I remembered his question "Yes! But with words! Life's perfect! Absolutely perfect!"
He muttered something, then I heard, "What are you writing?"
"History!"
"Aren't you making history?"
“Every minute with you is historical, hysterical, heart-warming — "
"Writing history is more important than making it?"
My foot slid out of its shoe and found his leg, rubbing it slowly, up and down. “You pun more than you know but, oh Jake, there's so much to think about, so much to say."
"A man I could fight, but a typewriter?" He threw up his hands, the boy in him grinning again.
I grinned back and blew him a kiss. "Do you see a typewriter here?"
He shook his head and stared at me. Fun fled as he said, "You've changed, and I don't just mean your weight. You're all hyped up or something. Last time I saw you, you could barely hold your eyes open."
"Last time I was still under the influence of — Jake! Had it not been for peritonitis, I'd be back at work by now."
"It's only the first week of August . . . " He peered at me over his drink, then set it down carefully, continuing to stare. His mouth was tight, his eyes critical.
I grew uneasy. "You’re the one who's changed." He was critical. It was over. Life would lose a vital link.
His grin returned. He wasn’t against me. We were all right. The burst of my joy into laughter seemed to surprise him.
He pushed his drink in small circles, darkening the white linen cloth. He didn't raise his eyes to mine.
Again came that sense of loss when the kid in him disappeared. I put my hand over his, the one beside his martini. "You are right. I am different. I've never, ever been this happy! It's almost too marvelous to put into words! But ask me, ask me Jake, and I'll find all of the most beautiful, exquisite words in the world to tell you exactly how I feel!" My naked foot continued to caress his calf. "I'm obsessed with writing, possessed by it! I've got everything I could ever desire: a perfect lover and all the words I could ever, ever need."
"You're possessed, all right. By what, is the question."
I yanked my foot away. "I won't take that, even from you."
"But I'm just — "
"Not just," I hissed at a decibel audible to neighboring diners. I was swept up in the speed of my amazingly hot blood. Seconds later I was laughing at his exaggerated bemusement.
"Shush. Calm down. Hush." He looked around the room and stroked my arm. His hand drew me into his warmth. "I'm not judging you."
"You're dear, wonderful, special — If only . . . "
"What?"
"If I could sleep, I wouldn't be so jumpy."
"You're not sleeping?"
"Not much. Creative passion has the most incredible intensity, the greatest power!"
"Our passion's the best!" He looked pleased with himself, then wagged a finger at me. "But not sleeping isn't so good."
I grinned and shifted in the chair. "I don't have to sleep! I'm on vacation! Right Cakes, Baby Cakes . . . Jake?" I seemed to be drunk, and on only one glass of wine. Silly drunk and having a wonderful time.
Suddenly I heard myself sobbing. "Oh Jake. I can't go back to work and dance the dance with fraternity boys in suits. I've got to get out of there! I keep forgetting to get the Sunday Trib . . . " My tears were uncontrollable and unexpected, like the despair that suddenly welled inside me.
"But you don’t have to go back to work for four more weeks."
"Really? Oh thank you, Jake. Everything's Jake, Jake. A-O-K!"
"Eat fast, but eat," he said when dinner arrived.
Leaving the restaurant, he gripped my hand, I gripped leftovers. We reached my door, breathless, laughing, excited.
In the bedroom I turned on the air conditioner and threw my comforter to the floor. He undressed and lit the candles, their light wild in the rush of cool air, white wax hot and spurting on the bureau.
Faster, faster the flames bowed, stretched, their shadows huge tongues on the walls.
Merging sensations peaked, a momentary collapsing, the building beginning again.
Coming together, holding on but letting go, letting go. Letting go.
We lay side by side holding hands, adrift in thrilling bliss.
He covered our cooling bodies. We touched lips, we drew apart, still silent.
Thoughts pressed for expression but my body was too limp to move.
My thoughts rang with truth. I had to record them.
I couldn't move. Jake murmured and snugged me to him, and then I was watching him sleep from the lassitude of satiation, until the arm that braced my chin trembled and collapsed and I tumbled onto his chest.
In the curve of his neck, I was inundated by the rise of sensual not sexual passion. I was so blessed to feel so much, to be so safe, to be with Jake, man, not boy, a steady supply of my favorite fudge, a safe for my passion, my exercise.
Heartbreak was worse than eczema, allergies and asthma; it was worse than major surgery made critical by complications.
RECORD THAT.
The words reverberated, urging me to pick up paper and pen. Jake stirred beneath me. His arm tightened around me. He'd be leaving soon, I could wait.
The firing surge of my thoughts slowed, my muscles relaxed, tamed by an act of love, by the warmth of Jake, the steady beat of his heart, the slow ebb and flow of his breathing. My eyes closed. They flew open. It was the lighting and the deep shadows that I had to remember. Because of course I would paint before my medical leave ended, and this chiaroscuro, this tableau of skin on skin in the cast of flaming candles conjured the dense richness of Rembrandt.
PAINT NOW.
What — I did hear something a while ago. But Jake was sound asleep.
The impression of “PAINT NOW” made my ears burn. Classical music suddenly drenched me in sound, as if someone had turned up the radio’s volume, sending my body into a startled spasm. Jake didn’t twitch even an eyelash. “Paint now.” I wanted to paint, I would paint.
Sometime later, my knee jerked and woke me up. I glanced at the clock and dropped down to nibble the line of Jake’s cheek, his lips, dart my tongue into his mouth. "Thought that would rouse you," I cried when he opened one eye and squinted it at me.
When he left, I showered. Exhilaration belted out my underwater songs. I slid into a lover’s old shirt, filled the ceramic white pitcher with water and ice and pulled the bed together. I placed the yellow pads and pens on the comforter — typing was beyond me at the moment. And I took the typewriter I’d put on the floor and set it on my dining room table.
Jake's view of my sleeplessness sent me back to Valium. Fifty milligrams this time. I made notes on a yellow pad in the dark.
It was 4:37 a.m. when I made coffee and went to the dining room. I switched on the chandelier, then the typewriter. I sat down, flexed my fingers.
FIRST ORDERS OF IMPORTANCE emerged top center on the fresh sheet of white paper. Impressive.
IGNORANCE IS A DIRTY DIAPER. I was stunned by the brilliance of this analogy.
I hugged myself and danced my way to the bay windows in the living room, and back to my seat in amazement.
I bent over the machine, fingers flying, words racing across and down the page.
It's hard to be objective about subjective causes: you may not see how your right might wrong someone else.
I could have been twenty-five again, advising Seventeen readers, amazed once more by how helping them helped me. Responding to their pain with an objectivity I couldn’t offer to myself helped to heal the wound that my true love Jimmy had opened. He’d been daydreaming out loud, he’d said, and never could honor a marriage vow. He still called now and then, the romance of our love for each other preserved by his integrity and compassionate concern for people who were denied their basic rights. My first and only “Crusader.”
Positive attitudes are crucial, a fine art to master. Just don't assume everyone else has one. Assumptions led me to heartbreak twice.
Humor is a bridge to positive thinking.
It wasn’t humor that helped a classmate at Parsons School of Design forget about her abusive, drunk father, it was painting life on paper and canvas, she’d said. We were kindred spirits who had connected in the depths of sensitivity. I’d forgotten about her and her awful childhood. My good friend Jess Olsen never knew unconditional love as a child, either. She also knew abuse. How lucky I was to have parents like mine
Too bad the men in my life weren’t as honorable as my sweet father. But ignorance and innocence accounted for my hard times with men, that and my incredibly thick rose-colored glasses. Ah yes, and the passionate, thrusting thrill of union.
No man is an island, entire unto himself — school’s most important lesson.
Most of my life, family and friends said, “Slow down. Stop thinking so much. Too sensitive, too literal, too gullible — “ The last was a fault built by my assumption that everybody lived by The Golden Rule. I was easily fooled by those who resembled my parents in any way. My first heartbreak taught me to ask the right questions, I actually had believed. But then came my second mistake.
Life now was safe in the shallows of superficialities.
How rare if not impossible it must be for anyone to live without ever knowing fear. “Dear Abigails” had ways of reducing fear. That's what had felt so good about my work at Seventeen.
Examine the tissue of face values. Ask questions. Ignorance can be bliss, but what you don't know can hurt you.
Don't slap strangers with stereotype labels. Prejudgment promotes misjudgment and lost opportunity.
Communication paves relationships. Relationships are keys to love. Love buffers misfortune. Love is the ultimate comfort.
The last sentence brought me to my feet.
My journal was a book. It was a book! A book! Breaking Through to Happiness. A bestseller, an international bestseller!


**********************************************************************
Journal Entry August l981


THE COMIC IS
A COSMIC FORCE
VITAL
TO THE LIFE OF LOVE

















CHAPTER THREE









Elation danced me around my dining and living rooms until thoughts of Jess stopped me. Jessie would love to hear this news! I’d written a bestseller!
Night blackened the windows in the still before dawn. I couldn’t call her at this hour.
I set my clock radio alarm for seven AM and turned up the volume. My whole body felt like one big grin as I returned to my book.
Germaine Greer flashed into my mind. "Wo/mankind" appeared on a yellow pad. How bright that white sheet in the typewriter was, its ink so black and commanding: "Different views of the world's ruling set men against each other, segregating humanity, disfiguring truth for personal gain, hoarding knowledge and strength to gain power, breeding greed and other diseases."
Shades of Jimmy, the first man I could imagine in my future, the attorney who had enlisted me in the ongoing crusade for Civil Rights when we met in August in 1967. He’d seduced me with songs he wrote, playing his guitar, letting me strum along on his “baby Martin.” Twelve years ago.
Civil Rights should be a religious right — yes, the key to The Golden Rule. Civility requires respect, the core of The Golden Rule.
My father and I weren’t religious, an education I escaped in a deal with my dad that my mother didn't fight. I saw nothing divine about a god who could take your soul while you slept.
God was no more real to me than Peter Pan, Robin Hood or Santa. The Golden Rule was all the world needed, as well as the visual and performing arts.
Love and art were my religion, that which enlightens, unites and inspires spirituality, the heart of ultimate freedom. Life no doubt was a scientific design. We humans no doubt would discover its source by accident.
Life could be the offspring of death.
Fingers stroked keys faster and faster.
Music sounded on schedule, first scaring then speeding me through brushing my teeth, adding color to my cheeks. I grabbed something to wear, smashed a hat on my head, gathered the sheets of typed pages, and both yellow pads, and ran to my car.
I front-ended the car to the curb and raced down the sidewalk to Jessie’s coach house behind a Victorian brownstone. I heard my voice shouting, "Jess! Jessie! It's me. Let me in! Let me in!"
She opened the door, holding her skirt, surprise bright in her clear blue eyes. "How come you're up and about?"
"I've written a book!" I crowed, probably to every one of her neighbors.
"You fiend, get in here!" She pulled me in, shut the door. "I'll get coffee," she said, tossing her skirt on a chair, disappearing behind the partition that divided the dining area and kitchen. "When did you write this book?" she asked, reappearing, handing me a mug of steaming dark brew.
She slipped into her skirt, zipped it, eyes still fastened on me as I blurted, "Last night, this morning!" I was still reeling, still drunk on discovering that my journal was a bestseller. "I've written a book that will change the world's thinking! Look, look," I demanded, thrusting pages at her.
She rifled the pile and shook her head at inked scrawls so crowded, the yellow of the paper appeared like an afterthought. I paced, topsiders squeaking at every turn, echoing my impatience, the contents of my purse rustling and chinking as I fumbled for a match for another cigarette.
"Sit down you maniac! I can't concentrate — here, take this," she ordered, throwing me a Bic. "Keep it — lighters are easier to find than matches, I've got more."
I saluted her, then fidgeted with lighter and cigarette, bouncing my crossed legs up and down, unable to relax. I lit the cigarette.
She looked so earnest, so fresh, her blue eyes so clearly alive, her complexion like Renoir’s cream and rose women. Renoir’s women, Woody Allen’s quick wit, Diane Keaton’s looks, and the Ivory Soap baby’s, Jess was all of these. And Kate Hepburn, Jessie's gestures on occasion that dramatic, that grand.
She said, "Looks like you've enough for one of those small, slim books — know the kind I mean?"
"Yes!" I launched myself from the cushion and hugged her.
"Take it easy," she laughed, riding my joy.
"Oh yes," I repeated, returning to the love seat. "Not too small, not too big — just right for the world to read!"
"What's the title, Goldilocks?"
"Breaking Through to Happiness!"
"Right on!" She looked away.
"Jessie, what is the matter?"
"I'm surprised you left your house in that getup — and you once a fashion director!"
I looked down at my red sweatshirt over my poppy-orange-bright linen shirtdress, the one I always grabbed when late for work. "Think this trend has a chance?"
“Maybe with a scarecrow. But you've less meat on those bones than any self-respecting scarecrow. What's up?"
"Nothing . . . I just never gained back the weight I lost after the surgery."
"It's obvious you don't live to eat, but you better eat if you want to write."
SHE'S JEALOUS.
"I better run — you'll be late for work." I snatched my book and stood.
"I've no clock to punch. Stay."
I dropped to the loveseat still clutching the manuscript, oddly relieved. "So, how was Door County?"
"That was weeks ago!" Her astonishment seemed greater than my own. "You better get back to that office — your mind is going."
"I also forgot dinner with Jake the other night!” I couldn’t help my mirth from spilling into my tale as I grinned at her and said, “He got over it, so please, tell me again about Door County!"
"Stan was more wonderful than even I could have imagined."
"I knew it! I told you! Love is in the air, all around us, inside us! Oh Jess, I love you. You saved me from that cutthroat woman who was after my job at that department store, home of our introduction — I'd never have gotten this far without you."
"You're really wound up — “
"Isn't life wonderfully gloriously marvelous?!"
She nodded. We hugged.
In the car heading home, I selected words for a letter to the publisher to announce that The Book was in progress.
Home, I heated water for coffee and worked on the letter.
The water boiled into air before I remembered to pour it. No matter. Too much to do. No time.
I checked the announcement for typos and readied it for mailing.
I kissed the envelope before dropping it in the mailbox, surprised by the red of my sleeve.
I remembered Jessie's remarks on my outfit.
TALK SHOWS.
I raced home for my wallet and back to the car, heading to favorite boutiques, building a wardrobe fit for the stage my world would become.
The corduroy, the silks, the velvets, the lean soft lines, the black, the fudge, the red in which I'd meet the world flowed through my mind as I drove home. Thousands of dollars on credit. The book would pay the bill! The book would purchase the material world, make my fame and fortune.
I raced home, eager to get back to my book. The phone rang as I opened my front door. I ran to the bedroom, dropped my loot and answered it.
"Patricia? It's me, Jessie." She sounded like a humming bird. "I'm worried about you. You were, well, acting kind of crazy this morning — "
Through laughter, I said, "Who wouldn't be raving to find themselves author to a fortune! Be happy for me! Life's a joyride and love is the vehicle! Come on, Jessie! Don't let go of rapture!"
"You're way past cloud nine," she exclaimed. "But . . . I'll ring you tomorrow. And eat! No one loves a bag of bones."
We hung up.
I returned to the dining room table.



*************************************************
Message August 1981




“NO MAN IS AN ISLAND . . .”















CHAPTER FOUR










Sun. Moon. Coffee. Water. Incessant smoke trailing from the cigarettes I kept lighting.
Paper flew from the roller bar, fell into my hands. Strange words leapt off the page, striking chords of fear.
Birds called soprano to the clack of keys typing, a forgetting sound urging discourse.
Another word stranger caught my breath. I choked, I swallowed water, I pressed on.
Sun poured through east windows into the room, its brightness gathering brilliance as it climbed. I rose to switch off the chandelier, suddenly aware that day had followed another night — I couldn't recall the last time I’d slept. Only when the phone broke the silence was I conscious of myself, how alive my flesh, how eager my spirit. “FE/MALEKIND, POSITIVITY, NEGATIVITY, INTERNAL/EXTERNAL” swarmed on the page before me, on pages beside the typewriter. How did those words land on pages I'd typed? I never broke words like FE/MALE, WO/MAN. But of course: they incorporated both genders, making one whole being in metaphysical terms of the heart.
Jake had a piece of my heart — he never talked like this. Nor did Jess.
But, if not Jess, and if not Jake, and not me —
WHO?
I turned back to the machine, determined to author every word.
Again word strangers danced laughing on the page.
Confusion raged; boiling blood flooded my senses, drowning me in fear.
The red sea fell away and again words glared at me in sharp black and white.
I jumped up, knocking over my chair as I hurried to the bay of my living room windows.
None of this made sense, and yet every one of these thoughts made all the sense in the world. I paced my rooms stem to stern and returned to the front windows. The handsome Victorian townhouses across the street made me think of Sherlock Holmes. All I needed was a magnifying glass, and Sherlock’s flap-cap and plaid coat to track down the origins of those words. Laughter burst out of me, delighting me, easing the moment.
Pages piled up.
But strange words were everywhere and the sentences they strung fell into unfamiliar rhythms. Fear struck, raw and freezing.
Fear ebbed under nicotine and again I was typing. Until need for another cigarette broke the flow of words, leaving me breathless with excitement at the prospect of discovering inspiration’s next installment.
I couldn't stop typing. Could not.
Sweat covered me like skin. My fingers slid off keys, striking wrong characters as words clicked into being, into sentences, into pages.
But I had to stop typing to read.
I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop.
My body felt hollow, fragile; it was shaking, breaking apart, collapsing inward, breath snuffed, sweat stinging my eyes, blinding me. And I was drowning in fear, beaten by blows from my heart, its speed wild, reckless, choking, crushing my senses with thunder.
Still my fingers forged words crossing the page.
STOP! Please, oh stop . . . please . . .
Stop.
Terror seared like dry ice, its burn so cold, shriveling, cracking — breaking into lethal pieces. But —
No! It couldn't be.
It just couldn't.
Yet there was no other explanation: my hands now had a mind of their own.
Oh stop, please stop stop STOP —
Light more brilliant than the sun exploded, illuminating splendor behind my eyes, every cell of my being lifted by awesome power.
Oh this light, blinding white, it shimmered, it gleamed, all consuming, invading, pervading. I sailed in its glory, soared in it. I closed my eyes; I couldn't keep them closed. And then the light whitened, it gained force and in it I saw all colors, every sign of life. Its power entered me like a lover, and like a mother feeding me bliss. And then came recognition: the power, that Power. This power.
I rose upon that crest of knowledge, afraid to breathe or utter a sound. The typewriter burred along, ready to continue its electric delivery of The Word already covering so many pages. I turned off the typewriter.
I turned the machine back on, its hum electrifying, drums again ready to transmit The Truth. I couldn't watch my fingers tap keys, or the letters that snapped into life on the page.
Yes, yes! The Power was . . . I stood up and dared to let my eyes fall upon the white sheet anchored in the roller bar of my typewriter.
"MESSIAH" in bold black print centered the page.
Indisputable substantiation.
I sobbed in the agony of elation. The “Messiah” was the Power, the source of those words. The “Messiah” was sending a message through the typewriter to me.
Brilliant white light undulated inside me, seeping through every cell, warming, heating, filling every sense, sharpening sight until everything I looked at sparkled, textures rich and colors dazzling.
My heart pounded, my eyes stung from straining, and blood sang in its heady race to the outer-reaches of my flesh. My toes tingled, my fingertips tingled, the whole of me tingled in the full force of love and divine absolution.
Melting and merging sensations turned me as one with the world, no boundaries, no blocks, a sense of freedom so comforting, so safe, that I knew without question that love had saved me, and that love would save the world. Oh “Messiah!”
The “Messiah!” had chosen me, ME! to type His book! For it was His book, not mine. However could I have assumed that it was mine?
Small glowing faces of English ivy bedded in brick peered through windows, nodding their confirmation. I knew now the state of grace. I knew now the infinite pure wonder of life's one true secret.
I raced to the bathroom, turned on the light and reflected in His glory framed by the medicine cabinet mirror. Darkness hollowed my high, narrow cheekbones, marks of beatitude. The brown of my hooded eyes was deeper, and brighter in the light of redemption, and the tangled mist of my short bronzed and copper hair glistened like gold, a halo. I wasn't too thin, I was lean-boned and long, wand in the winds of salvation.
The dazzle of my smile dazed me. My knees melted. I grabbed the sink just in time.
Breaking Through To Happiness would free every being in the world.
The Messiah, from Whom my Creators came, and came to create me. Oh yes. Yes!
WRITE.
Revelations came shining through, astounding me with their depth. "REVEAL/ATIONS!" the Messiah corrected, streaming consciousness surging down the sheets rolling through the typewriter.
I turned the lights on and off, depending on the sun’s schedule.
Anger struck when the phone rang. I limited conversations, often claiming company to terminate the call.
I was fevered by impatience to get into type the work that also would liberate me from corporate enslavement, releasing my bondage to negatives. There was so little time to finish. So little time.
In the bathroom again, I was furious. How could I forget pad and pen? Inside my tiled cell, messages jammed in my mind without release. Anxiety hurried me back to the typewriter.
More water. More trips to the bathroom, but I never again forgot my pad and pen. REVEAL/ATIONS gushed onto page after page of capital ideas.
I would burst within this explosion of excitement.
WRITE.
. . .
The window framed a burnishing sky reflecting like fire on the brass chandelier, its glare softened by the surprising presence of another day.
I lit a cigarette and turned off the light. Before sitting again at the dining room table, I read the page in the typewriter. I vibrated with shock when I realized it was typed in upper and lowercase.
I read more, still standing, hands shaking and ruffling the paper. The passage described the spanking my sister and I received after wrecking our closet instead of taking our naps before a family dinner. She'd offered to go first, surprising yet relieving me. I'd measured the pain by her response, hoping postponement would lead to pardon. Years later she said she hadn't wanted to suffer my punishment as well as her own. Why hadn't we agreed to disagree?
I dropped into the chair, puffing on a cigarette, shaking. Maggie had nothing to do with Breaking Through to Happiness.
Doubt agitated, spreading swift darting alarm. My heart heavied its beating, I couldn't sit up. Cigarette ash powdered the keyboard. Blowing it off felt good. As I straightened in the chair, questions resounded: Who had written about Maggie? The Messiah? Me?
I felt nothing, I heard nothing. The light thinned, dulled.
I grew cold in the absence of transferring these crucial messages to paper.
I stared at type no longer in caps, willing answers to banish fear.
No murmuring dictation directed me. No words surged onto paper.
But then my fingers touched the keyboard. And my sister's name appeared. Why was Maggie still the subject?
There must be a mistake. But whose mistake was it?
Fear hurled doubt aside.
Where was the Messiah?
My body iced, bumped with cold, a plunging cold like icicles driven into vital organs.
Pain convulsed me. Physical pain, high and keening.
Then the pain was mental, deep and destructive.
What happened to Him?
How could He leave without leaving a note, a thought, to say He'd be back?
“Messiah?” The plaintive note in my voice drifted in the air, weaving new cobwebs to sweep.
There was no messiah.
Disbelief was unbelievable. We'd been writing the book that would save the world. The Book. Yes!
I scanned a few sheets from a pile, words like POSITIVITY, REVEAL/ATIONS, FE/MALE first bewildering, then reassuring me, then horrifying me.
My throat dried and swelled, as if to lock out air.
These were not my words.
THEY BELONG TO THE “MESSIAH.”
Then where was He?
Confusion was hideous, it was wild and heaving.
Pain split my head into spearing waves, blood pounding, a roaring thudding rush threatening the essence of my existence.
The typewriter was real — I could see it, touch it, feel it. I drew it close and hugged it, resting my forehead against its metal.
Back and forth the pain screamed, rebounding off the walls of my mind.
No!
The table gleamed, penetrating the chaos that engulfed me. I looked into my deep green living room, building reassurance. Back in the dining room, across from me on the white linen cabinet, the Sheraton coffee service glistened; off-white curtains shifted at the windows, puffs of air sifting my hair, cooling my flesh, drying it, feeding oxygen into my lungs.
I was home. I was fine.
A sheet of paper curled, slid from its pile and stopped on the rosewood inlay that bordered my massive art deco table.
The taste in my mouth was metallic; rage burst into accusations and denials.
Childhoods were for journals.
I examined the single-spaced lines without margins that topped a pile of paper on my right. POSITIVITY, INTERNAL/EXTERNAL stepped across the page, words most assuredly not mine.
Typewriter keys glinted dully in the shadow of my face. They smirked, floating in a play of light and shade.
The typewriter! But it was twenty years old, it had no computer — then what? What?
Pain jabbed the void where my womb used to be.
In cold silence, fear erased hope. I felt rather than heard my cry.
The Book called me back to work.
But then words without meaning appeared, filling slow-rolling paper, a mesmerizing march that compelled attention, but denied comprehension.
I tried to stop.
I couldn't stop. Letters spelled words on page after page. I couldn’t stop to read them.
I had to stop. I had to know who wrote those words.
Need for speed blinded eyewitness.
Faster. Faster.
Faster faster faster.
Pain snatched my hands from the keyboard. I tried to hold my head together, tried to halt the pain with hands hard-pressed against my ears.
Falling into terror was terrible, my heart plunging deeper and faster than any roller coaster. Inexorable sucking darkness, a suffocating compression —





*************************************************************************************
Messages August 30th 3:56 AM — 4:02 AM



ALL IS DESERTION, GONE, DONE.

FIGMENTS, FIGMENTS, FIGMENTS.

TRUTH MUST LIGHT THE BACKS OF TRAITORS.

TREASON. BETRAYAL.

HELL IS BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN.
















CHAPTER FIVE




I found out in bits and pieces of groggy but growing awareness that I was curled up on the kitchen floor, my back against a kitchen wall. I was fetal and fearful, the slate blue linoleum cooling flesh heated by humidity and alarm. The strain of slowly and carefully inching my way into a sitting position made me nauseous and so dizzy, my head dropped between my knees. I drew my knees into my breast, tightened my arms around my legs, hanging onto myself, afraid to let go, afraid of what lay waiting for me in the dining room.
Something pulled me up the wall to the phone above me.
The door frame bit into my back as I dialed numbers, hearing clicks and then a ringing that went on and on.
Whose number had I called?
"Congratulations. You've reached (414) 555-9339," a man said in a playful tone.
That voice. It came from the past, out of my beginnings. It came from the safety of love. My brother . . . "Michael, oh Michael," I sobbed, relief draining me. "Please come down here, please, I — how long does it take to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago?"
"Ninety minutes, but — "
"Help me, Michael, please . . . "
"What's wrong?"
"The Messiah came, but then I lost Him . . . Where is He? Was He ever here?"
"Patricia?"
"What?"
"I can't understand what you’re telling me."
Ohgod I'm too weak to explain. "Please come down here . . . I, He, the words..."
"What's wrong?"
"Something is wrong — horribly wrong . . . "
"Drink some water and sit down. Take your time," he said, the cadence of his voice calming.
"But the closest chair is in the dining room. I can't go back in there. I can't!"
"Of course you can. Where are you? Patricia? Which room are you in?"
"Kitchen. The kitchen . . . "
"Take a chair from the dining room. Put it next to the sink. You can do it. Do it. Now!"
I stretched my arm over the threshold, leaning into the fearful space, anchored by my hold on the kitchen doorframe. Somehow I seized the closest chair and dropped it in front of the sink. Propped by the counter, I held a glass under the faucet till it filled. I set it on the counter and eased myself into the chair, phone still clutched to my ear. "I did it," I whispered.
"Good. Take a sip. Go slowly! Now take a deep breath . . . hold it . . . now let it go. Slowly. Slowly! Again," he said, his request an order.
The water slid down my throat, a silkening balm. "The words, the Messiah . . . I don't . . . I can’t . . . "
"What was happening before you called me?" His relaxed insistence gentled the tumult inside me, slowing the race of my pulse, my heart, relaxing the constriction of my throat.
I breathed slowly. I sipped water.
"Do you remember what you were doing?"
I clung to the sound of his voice.
"Can you hear me?"
"I've been writing . . . I . . . Oh!” Joy swept through me like a swift wind off Lake Michigan. “Michael! I'm writing a bestseller! I'm going on Johnny Carson! But — “ The winds of emotion knocked me off the edge and pummeled all the air out of me, tumbling me down. Down.
“ . . . . You still there?”
“Oh, Michael! The words. They're not mine! I . . . "
"Sip the water.” His voice was quiet.
I drank. "I got so scared, I’ve never been that scared, never . . . but then He claimed them. I was so . . . It was so . . . But He's gone now. I don't know where . . . "
"Is 'he' the messiah?"
"Yes! Yes, but the book isn't finished! He wouldn't leave now — Would He?" I stood and refilled the glass. "Michael, if He's not here now, was He ever here? But I have the words! I have them in black and white! And I didn't write them!" My wild cries left raw tracks in my throat. I drank more water. I dunked my head under a chilling flow from the faucet.
"Patricia! Hey! Are you there?"
The sound of him came through cooling streams and I turned the water off, vitalized by coldness sliding down my face, my back, considering answers to questions. "Positivity, negativity, internal/external — I've never heard of those words," I cried, shaking with fear as I resumed my place on the chair.
"You probably read them years ago and stored them for future use. Like now."
I could hear his infectious grin in his tone and I pictured him running his hand through his dark curls, rubbing his curly graying beard.
"Patricia? Those words came from your mind. They're your words. Your messiah is you."
"What?” I was shocked. “That isn’t funny and I'm too scared for humor."
"How have you been eating and sleeping lately?"
"Why?"
"You sound as if you've been fasting," he replied easily. "Or had one too many joints — "
"Sleep went the way of the Messiah, only long before He arrived. As for food, I drink water by the gallons. And the only drugs I’m on are prescriptions, Michael — "
"Give yourself two points," he interjected. "And stay with water, but add protein, vegetables and fruit, and, ah yes, sleep is a big part of my plan for you."
"When did you become the FDA?"
"And get outside. You need fresh air — and company. Call a friend. Ready?"
"I'm at the absolute best of my ability." Happiness settled inside me, then fled. "What makes you say my Messiah is me? How could He be?"
"Those who fast have visions. So do those who count the stars by night and the trees by day — too many days in a row. It's sleep that counts. And food." His teasing tone eased my agitation. "Sure you're okay?"
"Yes . . . Michael? Are you home?"
"You called me here."
"What day is it?"
"Saturday . . . "
"I'm so lucky you were home. And that you answered the phone, not the kids, not Jacob or Eta. Oh thank you. Thank you for being there, for helping me. I love you so much. Isn't love a marvelous marvel of bounteousness, beautiful, wonderful singing glory?! Isn't it? Isn't it?"
"Yes, yes, and you're welcome. Now, don't forget: food, company and sleep. And call. Anytime — we'll be around."
"I love you," I cried and hung up the phone.
Before I could think about anything, Susan called. I burst into tears.
She said she was coming right over before I could explain.
I crumpled into the chair and grabbed my drink with both hands. And I wept for the end of a ride with a god that had become a holy hell.
It was pure luck that I'd dialed Michael's number in Milwaukee.
Sheer luck that he'd answered.
What if one of those sweet little kids had answered, or what if — I concentrated on my luck. Susan's call was more luck, or . . . Why did she call? She'd seemed to understand I needed every second for the book. So why did she call? Why and how did I call Michael?
The Messiah? Coincidence?
THE MESSIAH.
Michael was wrong.
Jess called. Of course she would.
"How's the book coming?"
"I don't know! I thought I was the Messiah's vessel, but my brother said my Messiah was me and — "
She inhaled sharply. "Patricia . . . "
"He's wrong! I know it! I feel it!" I cried, sickened by the onslaught of sudden confusion. "I, I . . . I don't know what to think anymore, what to do . . . "
"You're not making much sense — "
"Sense? There is no sense! Words. That's what I have. Just words. And they're not even mine!" I was being shoved into far corners of thoughts I no longer understood. And inside me something grew. Something cold, metallic and crushing. "Is this panic?" My question surprised me.
"Sounds like it — hold on, I'm leaving right now."
"No! Susan's on her way. Oh Jessie," I muttered, looking at my hands. "My insides are coming outside. I'm coming apart. Why am I so scared?"
"You're okay. You got confused, that's all. I'm here, we're talking, you're okay... Your breathing sounds pretty good — think you need the bag?"
We were laughing by the time Susan arrived.
Susan came through the door and stopped short, surveying my home. "How long has it taken to . . . ahhh . . . accumulate all this?"
Her exaggerated bewilderment amused me, until I followed her gaze: paper covered the living room like patches of snow in thick-wooded forests. Sweaters draped furniture like clinging vines. Cigarette stubs dove into ashen seas overflowing the ashtrays, marking my passage as boldly as my other discards.
"Who has time to keep track? But look at all those butts, that’s disgusting," I said, turning to check the dining room.
She gasped and I said: "We're looking at every ashtray in my house."
"With cancer in both your parents, those sticks are an open invitation." Her smile didn't lighten the concern in her eyes.
"I'll be an ex-smoker when I hit the office!"
"That’s great! And if you start craving one, come see me," she urged.
"Thanks," I said, excited by the idea of breaking that dirty, rotten, filthy habit, to quote my dear Daddy-O. I grew uneasy when she drew back to look me up and down.
"How long have you been running on empty?"
"What?!"
"I thought that Jackson Brown song was one of your favorites!"
"Susan, I have to write something down!" I went to the typewriter, turning it on before dropping to the chair.
“FIND A MUTUAL LOVE AND SHARE IT” appeared on the pristine sheet of paper.
On the words came, feverish blessings.
"Patricia! You don't have to finish the book this minute!"
The Messiah was back! It was love we were writing about; that's why Maggie’s name was there! Now I knew how to start over with her. We both loved dogs and horses.
"Patricia, are you gathering wool or inspiration?"
Grinning, I exclaimed, "Everything was horrifically awful, but everything's really fantabuloso now!"
"Really?" Her eyes looked huge; she kept looking from me to my rooms.
I hadn't been aware of disarray until she arrived, or of the fact I was still wearing only a man’s old shirt. "This mess is testimony to time sacrificed in the name of art. The house will return to order the night before the alarm once again starts my days." I grinned. I burst into tears. I had to finish The Book before I went back to work and it no longer looked like there would be enough time.
My sense of claustrophobia faded in the light of a new thought. "Michael was wrong! He didn't know what he was talking about! He's back, and everything's right with my world! Better than it could possibly be!"
"Why don't you get dressed while you tell me what Michael was wrong about and — "
"We'll get something to eat! Yes! Michael said to eat."
Ten minutes later, we left for the corner coffee shop. Every few yards, dizziness knocked my feet out from under me, turned my legs into Jell-O, made me sit and hold my head, the only action that stopped the blinding dots of light from owning my sight. Seated in a booth at last, I ordered chicken salad, toast, cottage cheese and apple pie.
Susan’s large eyes grew larger. "You'll never eat all that — not even in your better days!"
"Better days? Why, Susan! These are the best days of my life ever, ever, ever! I'm writing a bestseller and I, well, if . . . no, not now."
"It sounds exciting."
Our food arrived. I started on the chicken salad, nibbled on toast, managed a fork full of cottage cheese. I couldn't touch the pie.
"You haven’t stopped eating yet, have you?" She looked concerned. "Take your time and have more — I can count your ribs from here."
"You try working my hours and see how fat you get," I snapped, and forced another bite down with cola. I pushed away my plate.
"Let's change the scenery."
Outside, we stopped to look across the street at a building, its guts broken, rotted, tossed haphazardly about the cracked and buckled ground floor. The stairwell hung from one support, its banisters like broken match sticks, its treads tumbling in crazy angles, hanging midair like some drunk in a noose. The legend, The Crystal Pistol, paint-peeled and faded, arched across the open doorway, sign of another time.
We stared at the wreck in companionable silence.
I found myself observing, "Such a perfect example of an externalization of the power of negativity, don't you agree?" Relating the book to a tangible facade took me further into elation. I walked on, soaring into the white-skied humid hot day, about to burst with happiness.
"Patricia," Susan cried from behind me, making me jump. "What were you just talking about?"
"Oh, I . . . Oh sorry, I — what's the latest at work?"
"No change. But I'm glad you'll be back Tuesday."
Tuesday! Tuesday.
" . . . been deadly there without you."
She took my arm, steering me around the foursome I'd wanted to talk to — the children gave me such bright sweet smiles. "What's your book about?"
“Breaking Through to Happiness — that's the title and that's what it's about."
"Great title! What's the premise?"
"That's hard to put into words . . . "
"Isn't that what you writers do best?" She squeezed my elbow and chuckling, shook her head.
"Oh, Susan, I wish I could tell you more." I stopped to look at her. "I've a new boss and He, well, He wants things confidential for now."
"Freelancing?"
"Well — yes!"
"Lucky you," she admired. "Is he eligible?"
"Susan!"
"Fidelity and Jake are incompatible . . . And don't worry. I won't tell a soul you're moonlighting."
"That's a good word for it, yes, moonlighting mindlighting headlighting footlighting . . . "
"Your new boss seems to have bowled you over."
I gave her another hug. "He is the very essence of love. When He sighs, the clouds fall back so He can walk in the shine of the sun and the moon. Even the night folds up its darkness in His radiance. And Susan?" I grabbed her arm. "He will take the shadows from the earth and light the world with love. There will be no more wars, no more poverty, no more hatred." I whirled her around to face me. "I want you to meet Him as soon as possible. He is an alchemist of the mind making thoughts pure gold!"
"You make the man sound like a god! You have to introduce me."
"I wish I could." I mopped my sudden tears with my sleeve.
"Don't cry. It's all right, really — people are staring." She patted my back. We walked on, occasional teardrops spattering my shirt.
"I love you, yes I do, I love you," I sang, hugging her shoulders.
"And I you," she said, directing me into the outdoor parking lot behind the gray stucco rear of her building.
In her gray-on-gray apartment, I fell on the sofa, dropped my shoes, put up my feet, and let my body fall back into her soft pillows. “I'd no idea I was this tired. What are you doing in the kitchen?"
"Whipping up snacks. A little food spaced through the day will be good for you."
"We just ate!"
"You didn't swallow enough to keep a goldfish afloat. Here, nibble on these now and again." She set bowls of cubed cheese, chopped celery and carrots on the coffee table within reach.
Sighing, she sat on the twin sofa and said, "Mickey tried to see me again."
"Mickey? Weren't you getting married once he got divorced?"
"Patricia! I told you last week his wife is pregnant again. The divorce is off. Again. Why am I surprised?"
"Susan, I'm sorry. Are you heartbroken?"
"No, I'm livid, and pleased about that. But I’m miserable about falling for the same line again. I thought he really meant it this time."
"Susan? Forgive him, forget him, then forgive yourself. Give yourself to love. If you can't have it one way, you can have it another. Love! That's the answer. And you don't need romance to have it!" I danced around the coffee table, put my arms around her, whispered the word love in her ear. I danced back to the sofa, and collapsed, sprawling along its length.
"Are you quoting the new boss, or proselytizing a new faith?"
"Let in every form of love and let Mickey go. Love him for how he made you feel, not for what he did to you. Love him for his love, let go of his betrayal. Do that, and you'll be free."
"With little effort, I think we could get you on one of those religious shows . . . Jerry Falwell, maybe." She grinned. "White robes would suit you, hide those bones of yours, too."
"You're very much mistaken if you think this is a joke. But have your laugh. Go on. I'm happy." I lit a cigarette, then ground it out in an ashtray, consumed by cold anger.
"Patricia, it's your presentation, not your philosophy, that's funny," she said, somewhat pacifying me. "In fact, what you're saying makes sense. If I understand it correctly, it's the ability to feel all kinds of love that lessens the loss of one of its forms." Her green eyes were dark when she looked at me.
"You’re a born disciple!" I cried. "Love your family, your friends, the beauty of the world, a good man when you can find him, and you won't falter through life, tripping over broken hearts and inflated egos."
"Okay, anoint me, or whatever you do!"
Triumph charged me with bliss. "Hallelujah! You're saved!"
"When did you adopt this theory?" Her attention inspired me.
"When I began writing the book. It all came to me then! You'll never guess what else came to me then!" The fever of salvation came through my voice, my ears, the center of my being.
"What?"
In hushed silence I breathed: "The Messiah. Now do you understand the difficulty of a meeting?"
"Tell me more."
Her exaltation didn't meet my expectation. Why wasn’t she overwhelmed?
As she listened to me, her head began to nod to the rhythm patterning my speech, an easy gliding rhythm rocking mellow in the harmony of Love. Never had my voice held such power, such persuasion, such golden gold tones. But talking was a puff of smoke: words disappeared in air. I had to preserve the Messiah's work.
"Susan? Susan!"
"Ummm? Go on, I'm listening," she whispered.
"I must have paper and pen!" The emergency of my situation seemed to galvanize her. She disappeared down the hall and returned with a pad and pen.
Handing them to me, she carefully said, "Listen Patricia. These thoughts are yours. You've no need to write them down — you won't lose them. It’s okay. Relax. What's going on with your family? How’s Jess?"
I grabbed the paper and pen and cried, "You don't understand! I don't have time to chat. These thoughts you think are mine belong to the Messiah." I caught my breath and continued. "I must capture every word. Nothing will be right unless I do. Every word must be set down on paper to preserve for all time. Every word must be recorded in the precise order dictated. That's the order of importance, the order of all time."
Protest shaped her mouth. I intervened: "This communication has nothing to do with you and me, only with me and the Messiah — I'm the chosen one, don't you see? I have to record when He transmits!" My voice was shrill, demanding. And a plea.
"I do understand, Patricia. Stay here and write while I do some work and then have dinner with me."
"Oh thank you for understanding, thank you, thank you, thank you."
Lamplight yellowed the hue of day fading as the luster of my work dimmed with fatigue.
"Dinner," Susan called sometime later, standing by the table.
I stood. My knees buckled. "I tripped," I said lightly and clung to pieces of furniture till I reached the table. I shoveled food into my mouth, convinced that it was all I needed to strengthen my weakness. Ignoring remains still filling the plate, I apologized for eating and running, and thanked her profusely.
At the door, she said, "Now do you think you can sleep?"
"I'm too tired not to," I answered wearily, then hugged her.
I took a cab the two blocks home. Propped against the closet doors, I loosed the tie that held up my jeans. They slid to the floor still zipped. I left the shirt on and fell into bed.
The phone rang three times: Michael, Jessie, Susan. Each asked the same question: "Now do you think you can sleep?"
Love was spilling out and over on the tides of exhaustion.
I welcomed sleep, but it was fugitive, its lure mere illusion. I bolted upright on a surge of energy, turned on the light, wrote through the night.


*************************************************************
Messages August 3:09 A.M.




TIME FILLS WITH LOVE.


TIME CANNOT BEAR DISTRACTION.




SANDS RUN, RUNNING OUT.


RUNNING OUT.


RUNNING OUT.















CHAPTER SIX










“Jessie! You're timing's magic — Florida," I said, pointing at the phone’s receiver in my hand. "My parents can't believe I’m crying from joy — they can’t understand that I'm writing a best-seller, that I've never been happier — how are you?"
"Shall I put these in water while you shower?" She waved yellow tulips sheathed in white paper, her head swiveling, bright eyes inspecting my living and dining rooms on her way into the kitchen.
“You truly are so wonderfully dear!” In the bathroom I luxuriated in silky puffs of lather, unable to remember my last cleansing.
"Are you drowning in there?" Jess called.
"Baptismally speaking."
In no time, we were seated in the coffee shop Susan and I had graced the day before. "I wrote to a publisher," I announced after ordering bacon and eggs, looking into her startled eyes.
"You're nowhere near completion judging by what you showed me the other day."
Elation plunged. Sickening, dark. But then all the goodness of love filled me and words burst out of me: "Why Jess! They'll want the book so much, they'll wait for it!"
"If not, there's more than one publisher out there — you don't have to worry."
"But I need an advance to cover finishing the book."
"You've got a job."
"I have to quit work to work on the book. I already called Don — yesterday, I think."
"Your boss? What'd you say? What did he say?
"He wasn't home."
She sat back. She leaned forward, chin jutting. "You cannot give up one paycheck until you get another."
"But of course I can, and Don'll call back today." I set my fork down and smiled, confident that fortune was spinning in the right direction.
"You're in no shape to work tomorrow. Tell him you've had a relapse of sorts." She leaned toward me, hunched over her plate, stabbing the air with her fork. "Promise me you won't quit. Promise?"
"Okay, I won't quit. Not today, anyway." I grinned. "How long can I prolong this relapse?"
"A couple of weeks, at least." She eyed me critically. "You make a rail look fat, you've the strength of a gnat . . . Don't worry, you'll have enough time to finish the book." Her forehead creased.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" She looked distracted, but the smile her mouth created was radiant. "Stan's still the man he became in Door County, considerate, affectionate, and more important, he wants my opinion."
"Why does it take so long to get comfortable with someone?"
"Defenses build — "
"Stan committed four days to you: no escape. He surrendered, freeing the love within him."
"Driving up there, we talked about how nervous we were about spending so much time together away from our homes."
"You know the First Orders of Importance — soon everyone will know how crucial communication is to positive feedback, and how vital positive feedback is to communication."
"Your book — "
"Yes! And how heavily are the fields of work mined these days?"
"Same old — "
"You don't look like they chewed you up."
"Aren't you eating any more?"
"No — I'm getting you horn-rims if you keep eyeing me like that. Too much time with Stan, I fear. He's gone to her head but won't treat it!" I giggled at my silliness, and because I felt so marvelous, high on the peak of conviction.
"You're out of control!" Her laughter sounded above my own.
"But not out of order!" I loved our gaiety, but that startled look of hers flashed again.
"Any more anxiety attacks? Any nightmares?"
"Why? Are they catching?" Omitting the fact I didn't sleep anymore made me feel ten years old.
"You're a nut, know that?"
"Takes one to know one . . . Aren't you done yet? I'm getting claustrophobia."
"Ready," she said, throwing cigarettes and lighter in her bag, searching for her wallet.
I stood, cried out, dropped back to the bench, holding my head.
"What is it?" She reached my side and cupped the back of my neck with her hand. "What is it?"
"Dizzy — weak — headache," I gasped. I closed my eyes, easing their burning sting.
"Sit while I pay the check," she commanded, returning moments later. "Better? Want to stay a while, or leave?"
"Leave," I muttered. I had to get back to the Messiah, to the typewriter, to The Book.
She threw my purse in her satchel, helped me up and through the door, propelling me from the coffee shop.
My knees felt like rubber cement. She didn’t flinch when my gangly weight descended upon her as I draped my arm over her shoulders, and slowly we negotiated sidewalk traffic en route to my apartment.
Home, I stretched out on the living room sofa, my body quivering, my vision a swirl of indistinct images.
The pain in my head was so shrill. It drilled the walls of my skull as if to bore through bone and escape.
Jess laid a cool cloth on my forehead. She massaged my temples.
The shivery feeling ceased, pain eased.
I felt solid again. "Thank you. So much. I guess not enough food and sleep have finally exacted payment."
"It's a wonder you're not in a state of total collapse," she replied, that look crossing her face again. "How about some tea? Or soup?"
"In this heat? Water."
"We're some pair," she said on the way back from the kitchen. "I eat too much, you too little, and panic owns a big piece of our minds. Have you noticed any changes in the way you think? Or feel?"
I laughed long and loud. "I've been at the typewriter more this summer than in my entire career!"
"How many hours a day are you working?"
"Do you clock your time at the keys?"
"Guess not. But given the pounds of paper around here, you're at it day and night."
"I am! I am! And you can thank yourself for that, too."
"Me?"
"You've been touting the joys of writing since we met."
"And so I have," she admitted, smiling. "How much are you sleeping these days?"
"I don't keep a log, do you?" I snapped at her, surprisingly so suddenly angry with her. The vise around my head tightened.
"Headache back?"
I nodded and constructed my path to the bathroom. In the mirror I saw disapproval. I'd taken too much time from The Book. I wanted to write, I wanted to be with Jess.
As I re-entered the living room, I heard myself ask: "How often do you internalize external points of view?"
She gave me a curious look. "As often as needed, I hope."
"Do you externalize internal points of view?" So much depended on her answer.
"You should know that I do," she said, then countered, "Why?"
"You understand what I’m saying!" Pressure lightened.
I relaxed. Pain eased so easily now. I was so incredibly lucky, so blessed.
My boss returned my call. I parroted Jessie's relapse story. He sounded surprised, then concerned, but he didn't ask questions. He'd rather ignore female problems than explore them.
Jess made soup. "Drink," she ordered, handing me a steaming mug. "Words do not a body keep."
"Shows how much you know," I muttered. "But," I sang out, excited, "ya gotta have love! Lots and lots of love! Just imagine! As soon as I complete The Book, positive attitudes will claim the world!"
"Why would the world read it?"
"Don’t doubt me anymore, Jess. Oh no! Not anymore!" The sharp edge of disappointment came through my words — she knew about the “Messiah.” Ah yes. "It needs only a few people to read it, and then, voila! Word will spread, bringing The Book to the world! Much the superior of the dominoe effect.”
"How would you market it?"
"As the greatest love story ever told, and as the definitive self-help book."
"If you want help, I'm in."
"Thank you, Jess, Jessie, Jessieeee — no man should ever have to be an island. If Fe/malekind kept that in mind, there would be far less hardship in this world!" I rose from the sofa to hug her. Before sitting down again, and before she could respond, I said, "I can't go back to work until my work with the Messiah is done. No way!" I mopped my tears with a napkin.
"I'm certain your messiah will fix that problem," she said.
Fear dissipated in my response. "Want to see what I bought for Johnny Carson and the rest of my stops on the talk show tour?"
"Absolutely."
I layered my unmade bed with new clothes and turned to her.
"What'd you do, rob a bank?"
"Try them on," I urged. "The black and the red are definitely YOU!"
"Why not?" she asked, unzipping her jeans.
"Don't you have that la-di-dah dinner with Stan coming up?"
"I do." She slipped into the black and pirouetted in front of the mirror.
"Those shrinks won't have their minds on the mind once they see you! Take it, it's perfect!"
"Oh I couldn't — the tags are still on it!"
"Take it. And try the red."
"However you’re dressing yourself these days, at least your eye for style is still intact," she admired, preening in the bright corduroy.
"Better take the red, too. It's perfect on you!"
"I can't wear both to the dinner, but I'd love to borrow the black . . . if you're sure you don't mind."
"Borrow? It's yours! The red, too. Take 'em and enjoy!"
"No way! I'll borrow the black."
"You can't refuse a gift, that's refusing love," I cried, spiraling in the pain of her rejection.
"Listen, you goof: I can't accept a gift of this magnitude. And that's love, too."
I hugged her. She changed and I bagged her selection in plastic from the cleaner’s.
"We're off to Sir Loin, my treat, and no back-talk," I said, shaking a finger at her on the way out.
We regaled each other with stories, laughing most of our way through courses, sipping Chardonnay. When the check came, she tried to share it. I held her off and slipped my credit card to the waiter without glancing at the bill. "Not to worry," I said. "This one's on The Book!"
She walked me back to my place, said good night and headed back up Wells Street to her coach house a few blocks west.
Back at the typewriter, my mind was a ready receptor for the Messiah's dictation. Suddenly knotting muscles forced me to stop. It was almost four in the morning. Suddenly thirsty, I dragged my sore self into the kitchen and leaned against the counter while the pitcher filled from the sink faucet. My body turned into what felt like a column of warm water.
I felt like a newborn, soft-boned and frail. Breakfast — even if I had the strength, what could there be to eat?
In the icebox, an egg carton nested among cartons of cigarettes and green bottles of wine; condiments stood on shelves in the flung-open door. The freezer held a frosted loaf of whole wheat bread, a few curved slices left. And there was an ice-ruffed package of bacon, and a stand of more cigarette cartons.
The thought of sauteed tobacco made laughter howl through me.
Running water splashed, spilling from the pitcher, whirling me back to the sink.
In bed I wrote on a pad propped against my knees and sipped occasionally from my glass.
My knees started shaking. My hand shook, the pen dropped. I turned out the light, sinking sideways into the pillows.
The Messiah dictated and His thoughts burned into me the light of knowledge.
I turned on my lamp, found paper and pen, turned off the light, turned on my side. I took notes in the dark.
The pad the pen traced lightened, a pale square growing smaller and lighter as I neared the end of a page. And then the pad was more white than grey; suddenly it was a pale shade of its yellow.
The phone rang.
"Who dares to call at this hour?"
"Your mother," came the reply. "Did I wake you?"
"Oh no! Why're you calling so early?"
"Your father and I want you to come for a visit — I'll be in Chicago by two this afternoon to help you pack, and then we'll fly back to Florida tonight."
"Oh, Mitheroooo! Thank you, thank you! Yes, come! Please. I'll be ready!"
"Just rest until I get there. See you soon."
I staggered from the bed, turned off the air conditioner, fell into the chair. I rested, then made my way to the bathroom, picking up laundry for the hamper, fighting darkening vision and dizziness.
I thanked the Messiah for sending my mother to me. Back in the bedroom, I called Jess and told her this wonderful news. "I'm on my way over," she cried with what sounded like relief, or perhaps I was projecting.
When I told Susan, she said, "Call your mother back and tell her your friends will get you on the plane. Your parents won’t worry once they know you can fly alone. And I'll help you pack, and drive you to the airport."
Such wonderful friends, I thought happily, dialing for a plane reservation. I called my dear mother and told her the new plan.
Jessie arrived. "Have you eaten yet?" Without waiting for my reply, she headed for the kitchen.
I forgot she was in the house and screamed when she came into the bedroom, a plate of toast, bacon and eggs in one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. "Where do you keep your luggage?" she asked. I aimed the fork toward the other bedroom.
I heard her grunt and swear; I heard a loud thump.
"I had to stand on a chair to get this thing, you giant," she declared, heaving the case on the bed.
"Better you than Mother — who, by the way, isn’t coming."
"But — "
"Susan reminded me that Mithe’s heart attack-thanks-to-chemo wasn't that long ago."
"I need to make some calls."
I wrote on a yellow pad while she phoned in another room.
"Okay, buddy, what do you want to take to Florida?" She’d scared me yet again, which made us laugh.
Susan arrived; packing went faster. "What will you wear on the plane," she asked, zipping the suitcase.
Supported by the closet door, I ranged up and down the pole.
"Make up your mind," Jess said with impatience.
"It has to be perfect," I explained, leafing through hangers. "Ah hah!" I pulled out a fire-red velour jumpsuit styled like a tracksuit. I climbed into it, zipped it up and looked for shoes, finding a pair of high, high heeled metallic sandals in the first box I looked. The first belt I touched was perfect, a wide suede wraparound, its front a patchwork of electric bright colors.
"Sure that's what you want to wear?"
"I'm bringing The Word to Florida! And I am meeting my Creators at the airport! This is the only outfit for these events! Now, if I could find something to put The Book in . . . " Of course, I thought gleefully, as I sighted a glossy white shopping bag. Of course it was the perfect size.
"A Gucci bag for the book, no less," Susan teased.
"No less," I agreed, congratulating He who was the messenger of love.
"What about cigarettes?" Jess asked.
"You take them."
She shook her head.
"Take them! The Surgeon General can consider me warned. Take them — we smoke the same brand. Save yourself money on the road to lung pollution."
"No way," she said, backing away from me. "You might start again."
"Given my new mission, kicking the habit will be a cinch, so either you take them or I'll set a match to the batch in the fireplace right now."
She took them.
Headed to O'Hare in Susan's car, the swishing thwack of the windshield wipers underscored our laughter. I looked into the gloom of the rain-dark day and then at the bright red jumpsuit echoing my holiday fever.
The radio played soft rock. I confounded Susan and Jess with new-found powers by naming the very next song.
"How'd you do that?" They sounded amazed. "Try it again," they challenged.
"Hey, don’t you understand? I can do anything now." I smiled and launched into the first few bars of Fleetwood Mac's “Rumors.” When it came on the radio, their astonishment made me burst into laugher.
We swept into the curve of O'Hare and found a parking spot. At the ticket counter, I wrote a check for the flight.
With a supercilious attitude, the agent pointed out that I’d left out a zero.
"Please forgive me. It's just that zeroes are negatives and negatives are no longer a part of my life." I winked at him happily when I handed him another check.
"Congratulations," he said with surprising generosity. "That's some achievement, ridding your life of negatives."
"Patricia? We've got to go," Susan said firmly, and led me away.
"You've just witnessed a technique from Breaking Through To Happiness — It works! Wait till the world gets The Word!" Susan and Jess looked at each quickly.
On the way to the gate, my knees crumpled. "I'll get a wheelchair," Susan said.
"Just lend me your shoulders and we'll march to the plane in step!"
The second after take-off, I released the tray table and placed pad and pen on top. I set the Gucci shopping bag on the empty seat beside me, thanking my new leader for ensuring my privacy. I wrote without stopping until an external voice interrupted me.
"Hi, I'm Carey. Is there anything I can get for you?" He was tall and blond, and he reminded me of someone.
The drink cart was at the front of the plane — I was incredibly thirsty. His appearance wasn’t magic, given my new employer. "I'd love ice water!"
"No problem," he said and turned away to fill my request. His attention was an airline first for me. The Messiah gave me the Power, He did! I was awed by that thought.
Carey returned with ice water, seeming fascinated by my pen speeding on page after legal-sized page. "Are you writing a letter?"
"A book! It's about love and hope and positivity," I rattled on, excited by his interest.
He shared his father's motto: "Good, better, best, never let it rest until the good is better and the better is best." He truly understood! "Give me your name so I can look for you on Johnny Carson," he said. Of course he understood. Everyone would. Soon!
"Don't start looking for at least a year — it could take that long to publish . . . " What a nice perceptive person, I thought.
Carey often stopped by to replenish my supply of water, sometimes exchanging stories.
Flying thirty-three thousand feet high, I was closer to the Messiah than ever. And I could note without a twinge that Carey reminded me of Gary Murphy, the man who had changed my mind about marriage.
Gary had called just before my surgery. He’d sounded happy for the first time since we'd parted. When I asked what was new in his life, he asked if I thought we would have been happily married had we not lived together first. I have no idea, I responded and asked why he'd wanted to know. He mentioned a woman from New Hampshire. New Hampshire. And I was in New York when we met. Of course! His father was in World War II the first four years of Gary’s life, a love founded on arrivals and departures. After the war, Gary lost the constant center of his father's attention, and nine months later a brother arrived. No wonder he'd changed once I moved to Chicago — his love had lost the hunger of partings, the glamour of reunions, the pattern his father had established.
At last that three-year burning hole disappeared. At last, at last. At last I completely understood what had happened between me and Gary Murphy.
The nose of the plane tilted toward earth. Soon I'd be with my Creators. Soon I'd be strong enough to finish The Book that would end global torment.



*******************************************************
3:04 AM perhaps in September

INTERNALS CONNECT EXTERNALS

DOUBT CEASES

ADVANCING

THE POWER OF FEELING POSITIVE

TO BREAK THROUGH TO HAPPINESS.








CHAPTER SEVEN










Dizzy in the crowd, I hugged the walls of the Ft. Lauderdale airport, scanning faces. They were . . . There! At the foot of the escalator. They both looked sad and drawn, their hair more silver than gray. Their stooped and weary postures alarmed me no less than the gauntness that their too-big clothing revealed.
I plunged down the moving stairs, dread driving me toward them, excuse me, excuse me, heads up! Before I could reach them, I heard myself cry, "Is cancer back?"
As if a conductor had cued them, they chorused, "We've had a little trouble sleeping lately — it happens when you get to our age.”
My father stretched out his arms, hugged me and said, “Let's go home."
Fear left me slowly and I warmed in its wake.
During the twenty minute drive, I regaled them with news from Chicago and the marvels of love.
Inside their neat white house, Mithe took food from the refrigerator. My father took my suitcase to the guestroom, put it on the luggage rack and, before I could open it, he led me to his bathroom and pointed to the scale and in his tone that mocked severity he said, "Off with those shoes and onto that." He played with the indicator until the scale balanced. He looked at it, exaggerated his surprise, opening his eyes wide; he checked it twice more. "One hundred and five including that outfit is way too light for five-nine." His sad smile softened his next order: "To the kitchen!"
Food was the last thing I wanted, but Clarence was at my heels and Blanche appeared in an apron and beckoned. I filled a plate with smoked salmon and a bagel and savored the flavor if not the bulk. "Did you just say something about a psychiatrist?" I asked hopefully.
"Yes," Mother replied. "Dr. Richard — he was in medical school with cousin Fred.”
"I need one of those to act as consult to The Book . . . "
"As a matter of fact," my father cleared his throat, "you can meet him at eleven tomorrow morning."
"Do you know Carl Sagan, too? I can get Arthur C. Clarke since we met during my stint at MGM.” When they shook their heads, disappointment momentarily tripped me, until I realized that "The doctor's a good start — I'll get to the others in time."
I smothered them with hugs.
"Daddy-O, is the typewriter still here? I have thousands of words yet to write before nightfall."
In the guest room, he replaced the carved wood-framed mirror on the dressing table with the typewriter. Privacy. I turned the machine on, then off, thanked my father and closed the door behind him. I wrote until called for dinner.
I didn't linger at the table and barely said a word, gobbling my food, in a hurry to get back to the most important work of my life.
Sometime later, Mithe knocked and asked if I wanted a snack. I blew her a kiss and declined.
Sometime after that, she reappeared. "It's late, dear. Time to turn in — you must be exhausted from all that typing."
"I'm used to it," I said and grinned. "I'll be in to say good night just as soon as I finish this thought."
The door suddenly opened again and my father said, “Patchy — “
I couldn’t help my scream of fright and almost fell off the chair. He came into the room to stand near me and said, "It's bedtime. The bathroom is yours." When he turned to leave, I followed him down the hall and climbed into my parents’ bed, nesting between them. In the cold light of the TV newscast, I took their hands, bringing them together in the hollow below my heart.
Life never would be this shining without them.
I was so lucky to be born to them. And now I knew exactly why.
My father was the second son of Russian immigrants, older than two sisters. His brother had become an orthopedic surgeon and he'd become an attorney, pleasing his mother Mary no end.
When called by my father’s father to help him run his growing business, my father left his burgeoning practice a few years later to join his father’s business. When Papa retired, they sold the business and my father resumed his chosen profession twenty-four years after he’d left it. My father was a staunch man — though he wasn't King Solomon or Midas, he'd claimed, always adding that he was perfect despite his mistakes, delight in his eyes, as always, bringing out the giggle in me.
Whenever we locked horns, rare, painful occurrences, my father would say, "I don't care who's right or who's wrong, I love you," a fact he made sure I believed.
My quarrels with Mither, my dear sweet little Mithe, were rare, quick eruptions easily forgotten, skirmishes for equality and the defeat of ignorance. We often were told that we looked alike, and as much as I loved the compliment, her slenderness was rounded, not angular like mine; her nose was perfect, and I could rest my chin on her head. We both wore our hair short now, but there our resemblance ended. Our rhythms, however, were in harmony ninety-nine percent of the time, our spirits free and adventurous and, unlike dear Daddy-O, she too loved to gallery hop, lunch and hunt through boutiques.
Mithe lost her parents when she was only three. Thought of her orphanage hollowed my heart, heating my eyes with tears, that pain excruciating now that the orphan state threatened me.
wouldn’t have been chosen had I not had extraordinary parents. I had to know this state of unconditional love in order to be valuable to my new employer. Blanche and Clarence were the heart of my soul. We were bonded by blood, intellect and emotion rooted in love in its most positive form. The Messiah was giving me the language to create a path to unconditional love that others could follow.
“You are the best parents ever, ever ever! Thank you for giving me art lessons, and art school and hoses, and everything, everything, everything else! And as soon as I get home, I’m going to paint again!”
My parents squeezed my hands as one. My mother said she had some sketch books and crayons around for the kids. I was in the best place I possibly could be. My body broke down yet again and, as in the good old days, my parents were making it easy for me to recover. And now my heart was fine, never better. My heart recovered from heartbreak because my parents had, from my beginning, ensured that I knew I was loved without question.
GET THAT IN WRITING.
I hugged my Creators and kissed them goodnight.
As the first touch of dawn seeped through the lightly curtained windows, I went to the kitchen for coffee and found my father at the table. His sleep-tossed hair waved white above his dark mustache, which Mithe and I still teased him about, begging him to shave it.
He looked at me, then at his watch, shook his head and smiled. "Why are you up so early?" He hugged me.
I had to sit down.
He brought coffee to the table and sat across from me.
"How were the latest CAT scans?" My voice was steady, wasn’t it?
"Your mother and I were issued clean bills of health," he said proudly, using his hand to flatten his hair. "So, now that you're up, how about a little breakfast?"
"It's much too early to eat!"
“There's no time like the present to start gaining weight."
"Later," I said, grabbing a bottle of seltzer from the fridge, dropping a kiss on his cheek on the way back to my room.
"Patricka . . . "
I turned back to say, "When I've finished The Book, I'll eat your cupboards bare, and that's a promise!" The set of his mouth told me he wasn't appeased. "I'll breakfast with Mithe when she wakes up." He sighed but let me go.
I picked up last night's end of The Book.
Possibilities were infinite.
There was nothing I couldn't do, no one I couldn't be.
Liquid fire sexual non-sexual crying care for everyone, everything poured through me and into words on paper. I couldn't bear such intensity, this warmth that almost burned, this ecstasy, this knowledge.
I left the typewriter and opened the curtains and the view across the street of an island of sawtooth grass surrounding the swimming pool and clubhouse. Why was I chosen, not Maggie, or Michael? We had the same wonderful Creators. I was close to the answer when Mither said, "Are you ready for Dr. Richard? We leave in ten minutes."
"I will be."
Excitement mounted. He’d be awed and honored to act as consult for The Book. I pulled a flowing white dress from a hanger. It was pure and simple, a proper vestment.
I gathered The Book's pages and slid them into the Gucci bag.
In the car, the urge to smoke shortened my breath, made it difficult to get enough air. “Are you not impressed that I quit cigarettes?"
"So why aren't you eating more to compensate?" Father asked, reiterating his new favorite theme.
"We're both proud of you, dear," my mother said quickly. "It's hard to stop smoking — I should know." She'd quit ten years ago after her first heart attack, but she still snuck an occasional smoke, despite cancer.
I looked out the window. The sky was pale, a blend of blue and grey. Puffs of sunlit clouds floated in the east; to the west, dramatic black thunderheads rose from the horizon.
The sky seemed to be split in two.


*******************************************************************************
September 3rd 6:57 A.M. – 7:01 A.M.

NEVER, NEVER FORGET THIS
UNIVERSAL TRUTH:
SENSE OF SECURITY
DEFINES WHY, WHAT INDIVIDUALS DO.
SELF-DOUBT IGNITES MISCOMMUNICATION
ARCHITECT OF FAILURE.








CHAPTER EIGHT







The doctor must have been waiting by the door because it opened before my father could touch it. I was disappointed to find a young-looking, squeaky-clean man rather than my vision of a white-haired man of distinction. As he opened the door wide and motioned us to come into what looked like a waiting room, his glasses reflected the light; his hair was red and fringed the back of his head; his clean-shaven skin was clear and freckled.
He’d gone to medical school with my cousin, which automatically made him one of the good guys. He must know his field. He would substantiate The Book. Love coursed
through me, warming, enrichening, inviting.
I followed him into his cream and brown office, barely restraining my sudden bursting desire to dance. Anticipation was hard on me. Always was. Dr. Richard would be so grateful to act as consult on The Book, hard as it was to stop working on it to see him.
From the depths of his brown corduroy couch, I presented him with the manuscript.
"Let's start with your medical history," he said, looking at me intently, and with warmth and interest.
"But The Book — "
"We'll get to it later," he promised. “So what was going on with you that you were hospitalized twice this summer?”
"In June, I had a hysterectomy. Then peritonitis, aaaaand thennnn — "
"Why did you need the hysterectomy?"
"Why would anyone need one? I'll tell you: guilt. Yes, that's right." I watched him make another note. "Know why I know it was guilt?" He nodded his head up and down. "I had my tubes tied after an abortion. Seven months later, my body started to bleed. There's your guilt. Guilt is the strongest emotion of all. It made my body bleed for . . . "
Revelation brought me to my feet in a sweep of excitement. "Nine months! I bled, not because of the abortion, but because I rejected the right to bear children! I'll never fall in love again, I don't believe that kind of love is for me anymore, and now, NOWWWW, oh yes! Love will save the world. We must love Wo/mankind as a whole,” I said, slashing the air between ‘Wo’ and ‘man’; we must be in and of a Humane Society — names are so important. Maybe we humans should be numbered instead of named, since names as well as skin color and religion still incite prejudice." I slid back down into the sofa, wriggling a little to gain more comfort, absorbed by my nesting instinct.
"I'm interested in your philosophy, Patricia, but right now I'd like to know what caused you to bleed."
"Pathology found nothing — that's why I know it was guilt!"
He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair then rubbed the bare top of his head. He lowered his hand and said, "I'm not as sure as you seem to be that guilt caused you to bleed, but we'll go into that later. Now, when was the operation?"
"June twenty-first. Let's talk about The Book!"
"Let's take this in sequence: what happened after the operation?"
"Peritonitis powered me back into the hospital, that's what happened — I never felt pain like that before, not even the night my intestine strangled my appendix — "
"Your — when was that?"
"Aeons ago, I was twenty-four . . . "
"I'm sorry you've had such — " His lulling tone opened me to my new higher power and I forgot about him until I heard him say something like —
" — long were you in the hospital for peritonitis?"
I sat up straight before answering him. "Ten days. Payment for daring to take my life in my own hands again, or should I say, my body, but," I pounded the armrest, "I can handle anything now! Anything," I repeated and laughed. I bounced in place and hugged myself.
"Let's stick with peritonitis." He leaned toward me.
I leaned back, fidgeting. "I thought I'd die before dawn, but I made it, I got rid of it. It made pneumonia seem like a cold — "
"Pneumonia?"
"Mother Nature gave that to me after a plastic surgeon reduced my chesty forty-twos to thirty-eights. Peritonitis was far worse than pneumonia, until they slid an IV into my arm with enough drugs to send me to the moon on my own! Suddenly I was flying! And pouf! No more pain. I wasn't so happy once they cut down the dose, pretty depressed in fact to be stuck in that depressing place for another century, but freedom from guilt was worth it!"
"Then what happened?"
"I couldn't stay awake, and then, and then! I began to write a bestseller! This one," I declared, holding up the shopping bag. "Here, read it now. It's rough, I can't type as fast as, well, it's a first draft and you'll get a good idea of the direction it's taking. Here," I repeated, leaning toward him, the bag swinging from my outstretched hand.
"I'm sorry, Patricia. There's no time to read it today. Are you on any medication now?"
"Synthroid. My thyroid conked out in l969. I gave up on Valium eons ago — fifty milligrams couldn't put me to sleep . . . "
"Why do you have Valium?"
"It helps me sleep when my motor races. Whiplash taught me its value — that pain in the neck was worth finding something that could put me to sleep as needed."
"When did that happen?"
"Ten years ago. Ten! Throughout 1971, I took a daily dose of five milligrams of Valium four times a day, four percodans and eight muscle relaxers!"
"Did you have any problems withdrawing from all of those drugs?"
"Why, no! The doc said stop the pills, and I did, all but the Valium."
"How often do you take that?"
"Any work night I'm too revved up to sleep . . . sometimes once a month, sometimes every night of the week. It depends on my level of anxiety or excitement."
"We'll also explore your use of Valium later." He recapped the pen, he uncapped it. "Any other surgery?"
"Yes. Yes! Lots! And always, almost always, followed by major infection."
I didn't want to think about hospitals, but he seemed intent on getting that information. "My body isn't a temple, it's a battleground." I finished the list. "Emergency surgery's best — no time to get crazy waiting."
I ran out of breath, gulped air, fought need for nicotine.
"Did you experience mental or emotional changes after any of your surgeries?"
"I think it was art school that made me so high after the breast reduction — imagine living in Manhattan, no curfew, an apartment, life painting and drawing classes every day, every day learning more by practicing my art and . . . boys — men . . . "
"You've had more than your fair share of surgery."
"That's why . . . " Yes! Now I knew why I had been chosen and not Maggie, not Michael. "The Book's about love. Here! Read it now!"
"I promise I'll read it later, but right now I need to speak to your parents. Please ask them to come in, and have a seat in the waiting room till we call you, okay?" He stood and opened the door.
The furniture in that small space looked uncomfortable. I stretched out on the rug, my head resting on the white sleeve of my dress. My blood raced in outrage. How dare he ignore The Book? Why else would I be here? Obviously he had no idea with whom he was dealing.
My new boss summoned me. And then the doctor.
I went to the couch and into my Mother's arms; my father sat in an armchair; the doctor was still at his desk. Their silence felt ominous. What could they have talked about? Mother squeezed my hand. I was safe, happy, thrilled, ecstatic: the doctor would validate my revelations at last.
“You," he said mildly, peering at me over his glasses, "are in the midst of a full-blown manic episode."
His words hit me like an electric shock, jerking my body about. Mother’s arms tightened around me, but that didn’t prevent my voice from hitting high notes as I fell back on her chest and laughed as a full-blown anything sailed across my mind. I laughed until rage broke my mother’s hold on me and sent me to my feet. "Don't you dare even think about trying to make me another looney statistic — you haven't a prayer." Why weren't my parents objecting? "I'm in the midst of full-blown creativity — I'm in the midst of writing The Book that will save the world with love!" The sympathy of his expression made my blood boil, it took my breath, it clenched my hands into fists.
"Manic-depressive Disorder — "
"I know what that is — my first lover was a lithium guinea pig in some clinic in Detroit. If he didn't like the way his hair was cut, he'd stay in bed until it grew out — don't you dare slap a label like that on me! Why, I'm, I'm . . . " I wanted to throw something at him, anything to shake his poise. "Let's leave," I said, turning to my parents.
"Hear the doctor out, Patricka," my father said.
They were on his side.
But the Messiah was on mine. I faced the doctor. "Read this now, Dr. Richard," I commanded, holding out the shopping bag. "It's the only reason I'm here — but hey! You weren't chosen, you were given." I yanked The Book out of his range.
How could my cousins send me to this man? Unless . . . The thought rolled through my mind louder, louder — I clapped my hands above my head, trying to silence the reverberation of that awful possibility.
My mother flinched. My father and the doctor remained still.
"Stop!" I cried.
The doctor cocked his head slightly, his brown eyes glinting behind their glass shield. He pursed his lips.
"Ready to change your mind?" I challenged.
His watchful silence further enraged me. "You must believe you've some divine right to the psyche, a license to divide people into two camps — one sane, one insane. What are you? A Hitler of the mind? Next you'll try to lock me up. Hah! Don't you know who I am?" I paused for breath, expelling it in spurts. "Have you ever seen lightening sever a man's face in half so that he can watch himself smile from across the street? You better . . . " My body went limp. It trembled, it twitched. My mother shifted beneath me. "If you've nothing more to say, I'm leaving," I declared, staring into the doctor's eyes, daring him to stop me.
"Patricia, I understand why you feel this way. Let me help you." His tone was gentle, soft and soothing, taming; sound not meaning.
I found myself drifting in his direction. Mother stroked my hair as she had in doctors' offices throughout my childhood. Father recrossed his legs.
I heard myself say, "You're right about my having a problem. But it's physical, not mental. I did too much too soon after surgery. I did it! And I can fix it. I don't need your help. I already have all the help I'll ever need."
He adjusted his glasses. "As it happens, Patricia, you do have a physical problem. You're suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition. But," he leaned toward me, "the state of your body has been caused by the state of your mind. The chemicals in your brain have unbalanced and that affects your emotions and your perceptions, it — "
"How dare you! I may have felt better, but I've never thought this clearly before. I now have the formula to end world hungers, all of them, ALL of them! Only when mind, heart and body live free and safe can creativity resolve poverty both financial and spiritual. Only when the hearts of Fe/MaleKind are ALL in the right place, only then will greed be for only good, better, best for the greatest number!" I drew air deep into my lungs. There was nothing manic about my mission . . . "Stop trying to make me a case for your files. Sleep and food, that's all I need. That's all."
"Not eating and not sleeping are part of it," he continued relentlessly. "The brain operates like a computer, but it's far more sophisticated. It lets you know when you need to eat, to sleep, to run. It defines perceptions of reality. When brain chemicals become unstable, physical, mental and emotional needs are modified, redefined, changed — the body suffers, as well as the mind. Do you understand?"
"Of course," I snapped. "But that doesn't apply to me. I love what I'm doing, thinking . . . Why, I've never, ever, ever been happier! Not ever, never, ever . . . " My voice sailed on into inaudibility.
"That's one of the more insidious qualities of mania. I'll bet my reputation that you've never been more creative, nor experienced more energy."
"That’s true, but it's time for me to be better than ever! I'm thirty-eight! I’m not getting younger . . . It's time for my lessons to be put to good use. It's time . . . " I clutched Mother's hand and pumped it for emphasis.
"That's a reasonable assumption," he answered. "But you can't function for long without food and sleep."
"I know that," I cried in frustration. "I'm eating and sleeping more now than in weeks!"
"Manic-depressive disorder is a legacy of ancestors," he persisted. "And you're in good company, Patricia. Winston Churchill, Hemingway, Van Gogh, Abe Lincoln are just a few of the world’s historic figures who had manic-depression, and the list goes on, and — "
"I've nothing in common with them — read the book, then judge me. You've no right to say anything until you do."
He looked at me sharply.
"What's the matter, afraid you'll have to eat your diagnosis?"
"No," he replied in that soft calm tone I was beginning to despise. "I'll read it as soon as there's time. I promise." His eyes dropped to his notes then returned to
me. "You mentioned anxiety attacks. Do you have them often?"
"Is that significant?"
“Not if you've had a history of them."
"Well, I haven't," I said grudgingly. "But the attacks were brought on by not sleeping or eating. You should know that — or do you suspect more sinister origins?"
"Not sinister, but I believe your anxiety was caused by imbalanced brain chemicals. So, here it is: I want you to start medication today."
How did I get from being the Messiah's vessel to being the main event in a manic episode? No. The doctor was wrong. Wrong. WRONG!
"I want you to take lithium to stabilize your brain, and Thorazine to help you sleep," he outlined calmly, opening a drawer, withdrawing a small pad.
I watched him fill out two sheets. I watched him deliver the prescriptions to my mother.
As my parents stood, I found my voice. "I have no time to slow down. I must write faster, faster, more and more. I know those drugs you want me to take. I know they turn minds into mush."
My parents’ continued silence must mean that they must believe the doctor . . .
The Messiah murmured and the surge of His strength fed mine. "Dr. Richard? I'll deal: I'll take the pills only if I cannot sleep six hours a night and gain three pounds in a week. Just one week. That's reasonable."
He shook his head. "No, Patricia, no deals. I'm sorry. You have a chemical imbalance that must be balanced before you can sleep. You must start medication today. And you'll need blood tests every three days until the lithium registers therapeutic levels. After that, once a week will be enough until the dose stabilizes. Eventually, you'll need only quarterly maintenance checks. Here's a prescription for Friday's test."
On top of wanting to drug me insensible, he wanted to suck my blood like some vampire in horn-rims.
I wished it were winter. I could bury myself in sweaters and pull the wool over my eyes.

************************************************************************
Messages October 4th 5:11 PM – 5:29 PM


DOCTORS ONCE WERE GODS, BRINGING LIFE AND SAVING IT.

CHICKEN LITTLE WAS RIGHT.












CHAPTER NINE










Wordless and weary, I entered my parents' kitchen and took a gray and yellow lithium capsule.
Guilty by association.
Not guilty. By association.
GET BACK TO WORK.
I headed for the typewriter, waving to my parents as I left them..
Some time later, my father opened the door, startling me — I was so used to living alone and so absorbed by my work that I forgot I wasn’t at home. He started to speak — something beep-beeped. He held up his watch and said, “I’ve come to get you and as my watch just said, it’s time for dinner.” His watch fostered images of divers and astronauts. I touched each of its knobs and said, "What do all these stems and extra numbers do?"
"It’s a stop watch, a dinner bell — we’re late!" He grabbed my hand and we walked down the long windowless hall linking the bedrooms, turning right into the sun-filled hall that divided the living room and library, passed the front door and ended in a left into Mother’s dream kitchen. A bay of three windows rose above the sink, looking out into the terrace, its comfortable rattan furniture and handsome glass-topped dining table and chairs. Beyond the screens lay lush tropical grass, shrubs, flowers and the canal beyond. Entry to the terrace was through sliding glass doors, one wall of the breakfast nook. On the terrace side of the middle bay window above the sink, an extension of the white counter top served food and drinks.
Before we entered my mother’s favorite place, I whispered, "Can I wear your watch tonight?" It would be a well-timed, twenty-four hour hug from my dear, dear sweet Daddy-O.
"It's yours," he said. He adjusted it, slipped it over my hand, closed the clasp. It felt weighty and I felt immediately stronger.
Once they understood the stakes, my parents would save me from the doctor.
“Patricka, let's eat, after which I'll show you how to work the watch . . ."
The bottle of lithium loomed beside my water glass. I took one and set the bottle on the counter out of sight. I ate rapidly, rinsed my plate, knife and fork, put them in the dishwasher, excused myself and, before they had a chance to say anything, I hurried back to my room.
Some time later, my father knocked on the door and swung it open. Would I never get used to being in Florida?
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” he said and smiled. Then he explained step by step how the watch worked. He fished in a pocket and withdrew a small manual on the watch, handing it to me.
He left and I returned to transcribing The Word.
Another knock startled me, breaking the flow of priceless communication. Mithe entered bearing one of her fine cotton nightgowns and the sweater I'd asked to borrow. It was the soft thick cashmere cardigan in beige that had warmed her for as far back as I could remember.
She stretched out on the bed and clasped her forearms above her head. She looked so comfortable and so beautiful, I just couldn’t believe she’d endured one heart attack, one congestive heart failure, one breast sacrificed to cancer — what else could happen to her? Not knowing was the hub of my fear.
“Honey?” My dear short Mither sounded as if I’d missed my cue. But she could not have just said that I should start smoking again.
Yet in fact she had, another “coincidence.” It had become increasingly difficult to restrain myself from opening my “emergency” pack and lighting up a cigarette.
“Mother definitely knows best on this one,” I said over my shoulder, as I looked in the closet for my suitcase, found the pack, stripped off its cellophane, plucked out a cigarette, lit it, inhaled it over and over, healing the wounds of abstinence.
What a buzz! Electric invigoration, but dizzying.
I happily typed and smoked for hours. My watch said that it was almost eleven. After watching the news, my parents turned out their lights. I went to say good night to them and then changed into Mithe’s nightgown and sweater, pushing up their left sleeve to give room to Daddy-O’s watch. I also brought to bed a pen, The Book, and a yellow pad, which I immediately propped up against my raised knees. As I wrote, the paper beneath my hand felt cool and smooth like silk.
The back of my hand captured my attention. I couldn’t stop staring at its pulsing, blue-green veins. Tangible proof of my existence. The Book . . .
My mind was fine. I was cold because . . . because I was too tired and too thin, not because I was scared. Not because the doctor seemed bent on destroying the most important work the world would ever know.
Not because I was scared. But fear rooted deep, and it was hot and throbbing, unlike the breathless terror of panic. I had great reason to fear for my mind, given my new doctor’s defamation, and the silence of my parents that had followed his declaration. I wrapped Mother's sweater more tightly around me, comforted by its soft warmth and lingering perfume, and by the unfamiliar weight of my father's watch. I collected the pen that Jess had left on my table the day before yesterday — no. It was much longer ago than that.
But it wasn't.
Jessie's pen was both symbol and substance of her loving, helpful, encouraging kindred spirit. In my left hand I gripped Jake's lighter. These items made love tangible, no less real than my new employer.
I flipped the top page over and shivered as I drew a line down the fresh sheet of paper. On left side of the line, I found myself drawing circles and entering into them the names of family and friends. Then I drew a circle around them all. My eye rested on the line between right and left sides of the page and anger swiftly drew a box and in it, inserted the name of the doctor.
I studied the right side, and then the left side of the diagram.
At the top of the doctor's side, I wrote DISORDER and slashed an arrow from the word to his name. I drew another box around his name, then another, another. "Let's have no more of this manic talk, doc, it's far too depressing. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever."
I slashed a line through his name. “You're cut off, Doc.”
If my body would only slow down long enough to let me fall asleep, I could begin to get my health back right now.
I watched my body shake as I wrestled with the spin of joy and snaking fear that today’s session with the doctor had incited.
I turned out the light and closed my eyes. But the power of my energy coursed through me, my blood hot and racing, filling me with the need to work. I turned the light back on and returned to the typewriter. It was three-forty AM. I worked until nature called. Then I tried to sleep again, to no avail. I remembered the doctor’s second prescription, to help me get to sleep, he’d said. The label on the bottle of Thorazine directed me to take as many as desired.
Since when did patients determine the dose? I shook out a few tiny beige wafers. They looked so innocuous that I decided one wouldn't be enough; two still didn’t seem to be enough, and since three was a holy number in my book, I shook out one more and took them.
My holy trinity was KNOWLEDGE, LOVE AND LUCK.
The number nine is holiest of holy, three threes, triple knowledge, love and luck.
As I wrote that message down, the tips of my fingers radiated heat and danced along the yellow pad’s lines, forging The Truth.
Refilling my glass in the black marble bathroom, I remembered the little beige pills. It had been a while since I took them, yet nothing had changed, which for some reason left me vaguely disappointed.
I returned to my mission, again absorbed by the brilliance of the prose I transcribed.
When I again put down my pen, I couldn’t get rid of my thoughts about the doctor and his drugs.
But it didn’t matter what my parents and the doctor did, I’d be fine. Nothing could harm me again. This abiding clear sure safety accompanied the words spilling from the tip of my pen, keys to love for me and the world.
It was almost five when I again turned out the light. My body took the fetal position and I closed my eyes, comforted by love within and without.
But I'd failed to secure a consult for The Book. And according to a psychiatrist, I was “in the midst of a full-blown manic episode.”
I buried my head under the pillow. I couldn’t stand this. Why would a friend of the family say such a thing if he didn’t believe it?
Perhaps I was dreaming because suddenly I was sixteen again and on the back of Shelagh, the Irish thoroughbred love of my life. How I loved that mare, her spirit, her heart, her burnished fine-boned carriage. I could almost feel the soft air of that summer afternoon, the sun hot, the breeze cooling. Shelagh and I were executing flying lead changes at the crux of figure eight circles. We were getting bored with that exercise when our trainer Sloan yelled something. Shelagh seemed happy to stop and I looked for him.
Ah. He was across the paddock, leaning against the 1949 Ford rusting on its hubs near the hay barn behind the stable; he was with a man in a suit. Motioning me to come in, he bellowed, "Trot her to the gate, start a gallop, and head her over this car. And Let Her Go!" He boomed the last order and slapped the man on the back as they stepped away from the car.
"You're kidding!" I cried, eyeing the fat tall curves of the Ford.
"SEND HER!" he roared.
When we passed the gate, I signaled Shelagh forward and aimed her at the dusty dark blue hulk of metal. Her ears swept forward and I could feel her heart pump as she struck the stride that led to takeoff. "It's all yours, girl," I whispered, rising out of the saddle, loosening the reins, grabbing mane high on her neck. I closed my eyes as she rocketed us into the air, soaring into the sky. In flight, I glanced down on an endless rain-dusted sheet of metal, quickly shutting my eyes again, trusting the powers of my partner.
Good trip," Sloan casually said, lights dancing in his eyes as he took the reins at Shelagh’s chin and slapped her shoulder a few times with pride and affection.
I swung my right leg over the saddle to dismount and next I knew, I was lying on the ground, and he was dragging me to my feet, slapping me on the back.
Dr. Richard was a different kind of 1949 Ford. That thought brought me to sleep, fitful and short-lived.
I awoke again to the memory of the doctor’s claim that I was crazy. But I wasn’t. I didn’t couldn’t have manic-depression.
How did he get that idea?
I got up and doused my face with cold water and looked down the hall to my parents' room; darkness edged their half-open door. I went back to bed then jumped out again to add more blankets. I huddled beneath their weight, the fans blades stroking cool air across my face. At some point, I slept.
The next time I awoke, I felt refreshed. I brushed my teeth and returned to the typewriter.
When my parents stirred, I dressed in white and joined them in the kitchen.
With their eyes upon me, I announced, "The Book's ready for you now.” Once they read it, they'd put a halt to medical interference.
"I will, right after my golf game," Father said, kissing my cheek on his way to the door.
"It's the first draft, so it's pretty rough."
"If I can read the words, it can't be too rough," he said and hugged me.
"I'll read it the minute he's finished," Mithe said.
I relaxed. Soon my Creators would laugh that doc right out of my life.
After lunch, my father took The Book to his office and I entered my room to write.
A short time later he was at my door. "Patricka? I'm afraid I can't read this," he said, holding out the stack of sheets, misery in his eyes.
"Why?" My heart was so loud I was afraid I wouldn't hear his reply.
"I can't follow all your arrows and scribbles. You've not only written over the type, you've written over your own handwriting . . . I'm sorry."
I understood his difficulty, but he didn't seem to understand mine. He looked so unhappy that I heard myself saying, "Don't worry, Daddy-O, you can read it in hardcover."
I found Mithe resting on her bed.
Her eyes opened; she smiled.
"I've brought you The Book!"
She took the manuscript and went to curl up in a library wing chair. While she read, I worked, bringing her the latest pages. At last she put them down, slid glasses up into her hair, and said: "Time for tea."
Over cold cuts and cheeses, she said the book seemed to cover everything I'd ever thought about and learned. Her smile was tender. She never mentioned the Messiah. That night I had to push that memory away again and again until sleep took me away.
Sometime after four, I woke up screaming, in my head or out loud — I couldn't tell. I stared into the darkness, my eyes stinging as I strained to see. Neon flecks vibrated against a wavering black ground, out of which the doctor loomed. His hands were immense, one finger huge and pointing at me. In a magnified voice, he accused me of madness, he denied me my mind. Closer he came, carrying a prescription pad the size of a billboard, so big, all I could see was the top of his head and those swollen grasping hands.
The doctor was the nightmare. His prescriptions would take the life out of life.
My eyes burned from straining in the dark. My throat closed — I couldn't get any air. I couldn’t breathe . . .
I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the wall, flipped the fan switch to high, staggered to the typewriter and dropped into my chair. I turned it on and humming words of love flowed onto paper.
The next time I surfaced, I noticed the time and joined my parents in the kitchen.
That afternoon, I answered the phone in my father's office, which also served as another guestroom.
It was Jess.
I told her about the doctor and his diagnosis. I implored her to ask Stan to check out Dr. Richard. She said not to worry, that I was lucky to have more time for my book, and more time with my parents. Then she regaled me with stories from Chicago and said she'd call again soon.
After we hung up, I realized she hadn't seemed surprised to learn about the doctor, or his diagnosis.
I sat back in my father's chair, my eyes wandering across the books that filled the bookcase on the wall above his desk. The Merck Manual of Medicine stood out. I thumbed through the index and found what I wanted tucked between mammoplasty and Mantoux test, whatever that was. The definition of my alleged mania read:
Paranoia; psychosis; refusal to accept disorder; acute mood elevation; loss of reality; accelerated thought, speech and muscular activity; inability to eat and sleep; grandiose perception; extravagant expenditures . . .
I understood the doctor's mistake. He'd taken my lack of sleep and food and parlayed them into a psychotic break of manic-depressive proportions.
What did Merck say about the drugs?
Lithium, merely a salt, has no effect on the unaffected yet balances imbalanced brain chemicals, acting as both a tranquilizer and a conductor toward normality . . .
Lithium can become toxic and result in a coma. . . .
I could see the coma coming. And Thorazine?
An anti-psychotic commonly used to restore emotional calm and relieve severe anxiety —
I replaced the book and gripped the shelf it rested on. I didn't know whether to hold my head first, or my stomach. The word anti-psychotic tumbled on and on in mind-numbing repetition.
The second day on Dr. Richard’s pills, my mouth dried up, causing me to sip my drink every few seconds. The third day, the sound of hovering mosquitoes buzzed my ears. By the fourth day, or the fifth, my hands started shaking. At eighty-seven, my grandmother’s main complaint was the fact her hands shook. She no longer could knit, cook, clean. She filled a glass only halfway.
My body might be thirty-eight, but it felt like eighty-seven.
Before the first week on lithium ended, nausea ruined my dinner. At my mother's insistence, I called Dr. Richard. Take lithium after meals.
He was right.
Time passed at the typewriter, at meals with my parents, sometimes joined by their friends, and in a few hours of nightly sleep.
The further time took me from Dr. Richard, the better I felt.

********************************************************************
Message Fall 1981

BREAK THROUGH TO HAPPINESS

WITH SELF-KNOWLEDGE

WITHOUT SELF-DOUBT.







CHAPTER TEN










"Okay, Datsun," my father said at breakfast.
“The ‘We are driven!’ car!”
"So stop driving that typewriter morning, noon and night! You're here to recover, not to drive yourself sick. And Patricka, how about finding more time for your mother and me — "
Tears flooded my eyes, overflowed, hot, wet tracks down my cheeks.
"You know you can't take everything I say so literally!" He leaned over, lifted my chin and smiled into my eyes. "You know we love you — but from now on," he shook a finger at me, his eyes loving, his mouth in a happy frame, "turn off that typewriter by ten every night. Agreed?"
"No problem!"
"You look better since you've gained a few ounces," Mother said. "But . . . "
"To quote one of Daddy-O's favorites: a hundred times zero is still zero! What do you think of Dr. Richard? You can’t believe him and still include me in your social life. If you thought I were crazy, you'd lock me up, wouldn't you — would you?"
"Datsun! Give us a chance to answer your first question!" My father rarely raised his voice.
"We think Dr. Richard can help you," my mother said. "And why would we keep
you from our friends?"
"Do you believe Dr. Richard?"
"I believe in you, dear," she softly said.
"So if you thought I was crazy, you'd put me away?"
“Don't worry so much — just concentrate on getting better."
"And what's your opinion, O Daddy-O?"
"Me?" He pointed to his chest with not quite suppressed amusement. "I agree with your mother — don't I always?"
Relieved that we'd resolved that issue, I retreated to my room.
That night I couldn't stop writing at ten. By two AM, guilt weighted me. I wrote my father a note, speaking the words as I spelled them on paper:
"LETTER TO YOU MY LOVING FATHER FROM ME YOUR LOVING CREATION TO EXPLAIN WHY I CANNOT ABIDE BY YOUR REQUEST THAT I STOP WRITING BY TEN P.M.:
“COMMUNICATING THE ESSENCE OF MY WHYS FOR BREAKING DOWN MY PHYSICAL SELF BEFORE BREAKING THROUGH TO THE TOTALITY OF MY INTERNAL SELF-KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF MY EXTERNAL SELF-KNOWLEDGE TO EXPERIENCE THE TOTALITY OF OVERPOWERING FEELINGS OF MY POSITIVE, EVER-INCREASING RUSH TO LEARN WHAT IT IS THAT I KNOW, AND IN SO DOING, ALMOST SELF-DESTRUCTING MY PHYSICAL SELF IN THE PROCESS AND THEN FINALLY UNDERSTANDING THE ESSENCE OF MYSELF AND THUS LIFE. I LOVE YOU . . . I LOVE MOTHER AND I UNDERSTAND MY LOVE — MY POWERFUL POSITIVE LOVE FOR YOU, MY DEAR CREATORS."
I put the folded piece of blue-lined yellow paper on the sink in the bathroom, the first place he went in the morning.
. . .
"Hello, Dr. Richard," I intoned with prepared congeniality. He would change his mind about me. I made myself relax in the chair next to his desk.
"You seem better today," he said, smiling above a cream-colored tie and plaid shirt.
"Of course I'm better — I'm eating, I’m sleeping — If you really think I’m manic, why do you see me only once a week?"
"My schedule's tight. If you were living alone, I'd have someone else see you more frequently."
"Here’s The Book," I said and held out the bag.
"Perhaps later. I'm not avoiding it, but we have a lot of ground to cover today." He looked me in the eye and added, "I'll read it. I promise."
"What ground shall we cover now?" How easy it was to mask my annoyance with him.
"Why don't you start with the milestones in your life."
"Milestones? Or millstones? I've had plenty of both."
"Your choice."
"When I was twenty-five, I asked my doctor for a prescription for sleeping pills, more than enough to — of course I didn't do it." His mouth smiled, but his eyes didn't. "As my dear mother says, in for a penny, in for a pound: Unrequited love almost did me in. After a twenty-minute silent, motionless ascent in the express car to the twenty-sixth floor, I was so glad the doors opened and saw the MGM logo that I threw away those pills." Just thinking about that heartbreak and that ride sickened me with pain and fear. Tears slipped from my eyes until another thought dammed them: "Love is the most powerful emotion, more powerful than hate — if you’re lucky, definitely more powerful than guilt. But love also creates fear of rejection, fear of death, fear . . . Love is the most uplifting killing feeling there is."
He cupped his chin and zeroed in on my eyes, still silent.
"What do you think of love? Of hate?"
Not one muscle flickered, his silent stare unwavering, as if he hadn’t heard my questions, which infuriated me.
"What do you think of POSITIVITY? Negativity? Internal/external views? What? What do you think? Or don’t you think at all?" I was so angry that I was shaking.
"I'll answer your questions, but first, I’d like to hear more about your suicidal experience. Okay?"
"Evidently I lost my identity when I fell for my first presumed true love, because when he changed his mind about marriage, I was overcome by that unbearable pain of loss, the future and the present suddenly non-existent. Death would save me from that hell. But, now I understand why I didn’t die in 1968. I’ve been given a mission! There’s no greater joy than helping people to help themselves — the book, Doctor, this is what’s important about me."
"I agree with you, and I'm sorry you had to go through that heartbreak, but
I need to know more about you before I can read your book, okay?”
“Patience isn’t one of my virtues, not yet, anyway. Let’s get it over with and on to the essence of why we’re meeting.”
“How long after surgery did you buy the sleeping pills?"
"Maybe six weeks, two months — I don’t know. That pain, that decimating power was unbearable. It was just so hard to concentrate on work — I was assisting the creative director on MGM’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is where I met Arthur C. Clark, Stanley Kubrick — Arthur C. needs to read The Book and comment on it, also."
"You’ve led an interesting life. And it may be that the stress of surgery made you feel that depth of pain, which more likely was a suicidal depression."
His words shocked me. I’d never thought about my need to die as an illness. I never thought about it. Back then, there was every reason to die when Jimmy took our future away without warning.
The creaking sound of Dr. Richard leaning back in his chair brought my attention back to him before he said, "Did you ever tell your doctor that you wanted to die?"
"It never occurred to me to tell anyone. In any event, a month or two later, I did tell him that I had trouble staying awake. After he gave me a blood test, he put me on thyroid pills."
Dr. Richard leaned forward and aimed his pen at me. "And were you also overweight?"
"Yes, nor could I focus on anything."
"I suspect your doctor confused symptoms of depression with thyroid deficiency. When you're feeling better, we'll talk about your thyroid."
Fury iced me as he opened up a manila file and noted something on the top sheet of paper. "And Patricia, should you need major surgery again, please ask your doctor to increase your lithium dose accordingly. If you're not taking it, start it a few weeks beforehand. This is important, Patricia."
"It isn't as important as you think," I retorted. "Lithium hasn’t done anything to me at all. Neither has Thorazine. They’re worthless — once you've read The Book, I know you'll take me off them. Read The Book, Dr. Richard. Don't talk to me. Everything you need to know is in that book. Read it now."
"Patricia, the prescriptions are helping you. And I want you to take a fifth lithium starting today."
"I don't need any of it! NOW, in the ninth month of my thirty-eighth year, I'm experiencing the most intense TOTAL HAPPINESS ever! Because I finally made all the connections between my positive and negative relationships — with myself and everyone else. I've removed the last of my self-doubt! But you think I need lithium. That's crazy — I've never been better!"
"Have you experienced anxiety in the past week?"
"Not really, not like before — I'm just so happy — except . . . "
"Except?"
"You’re treating me for a mental illness."
"Yes, and you said you have less anxiety."
"Because I've been eating and sleeping, physical not mental factors, not because of your pills."
"You are sleeping because the medicine has initiated the stabilization of your brain chemicals, Patricia." His tone was gentle.
"Are you telling me that intense feelings are abnormal?"
"To the extent that they keep you from sleeping and eating, yes."
"But I'm just so excited to finally figure myself out, to be writing, ah, a best-seller—"
"Yes, I can understand and appreciate the excitement of that. Keep taking the lithium and Thorazine."
In the waiting room, Mother looked up from a magazine, slipped her reading glasses into a case, tucked them in her bag. "Ready?"
"I have to feed the lion," I said, digging through my purse for the checkbook.
Maybe he’d read The Book next week.
I huddled against the car door and closed my eyes. I was the only one who believed in my sanity.
Me, and the Messiah.
* * *
Dr. Richard and I faced each other at his desk the following Tuesday. I spoke of reveal/ations and answers to questions. And he actually read some of The Book! Putting it back in the bag, he said, "You have some perceptive observations in here. I'd like to read more at another time."
"Perceptive? That's the only word you’d choose to describe the Messiah’s messages?"
"Tell me about your messiah."
He'd read some of the book. He'd praised it. He was a friend of family, and his interest and warmth felt real. And we needed him to validate The Book . . . "I’ve been transcribing His new bible that will save the world with love."
"What does he look like?"
"He is everywhere there is life and His presence fills me with soft humming and a golden warmth. Serenity, security, peace fill me when my body temporally forces me to stop typing His messages."
"That's a good way to feel."
"Wonderful! It's a wonderful way to live! You could feel this way all the time too if you harbored only love, if you always did your best, if you walked away from disharmony, or learned to live with it with the least cost to all concerned."
"What does he sound like?"
He was back on my Leader, who now filled my mind. "His messages are like music, flowing faster than I can type.”
“Do you ask why he’s leading you in a particular direction?”
“The only direction I question is my own, but I haven’t time for me. This new Bible has to get into print as soon as possible and put an end to genocide, killing of every kind degrades Fe/Malekind. It’s time for Love now and forever, the only power that can end wars everywhere."
"How long have you been working on this book?" Dr. Richard was leaning forward now, his interest intent, his hands open on his knees, inviting.
"I, I don't know — but His arrival scared the hell out of me!"
"Was that the only time you got scared?"
"No. The Messiah disappeared one day and I almost drowned in panic! Give me elevator malfunction any day! But my brother and friends talked to me until I found Him again and I haven't lost anything at all since — do I just stop the pills, or are they the kind one has to withdraw from?"
"I don't want you to stop taking them."
"But you know everything now! You can't want The Book stopped!"
"Are you writing now?"
"Yes, but to please my father, I agreed to write for only two hours in the morning, three in the afternoon, and complete shut-down by ten at night — he calls me Datsun!"
"Take the pills and keep working."
"But they'll make me stop writing. I know about these drugs. They'll turn me into a zombie!"
"They won't, Patricia. They'll help you to sleep, and eat. You'll begin to feel better and better — you're better already."
"Your pills have nothing to do with it — my parents are making me feel better — I agree with you that I was a little run down, but for good reason."
"Are you still experiencing any problems from the surgery?"
"No. That's done. I've paid my dues. I'm free. Just still a little weak."
"Are you eating well now?"
"Can't you tell?"
"You'll feel stronger soon," he assured me. "And the pills will help, along with good food and sleep."
The fact I liked Dr. Richard didn’t help much given his insistence that I continue to take the medication. But he was a doctor trained in the ways of the mind, a perfect consult for The Book. And, he liked The Book! When he read more, he'd use words like astounding and brilliant to describe the passages he'd read! "Maybe you could read a little more of The Book right now." I proffered the Gucci bag.
"Not this visit — but your output is impressive." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"Output! What about content? Output. I’m only the typist. Output. That’s all anybody could talk about when I was ten and wrote a story about a horse that my father’s secretary typed, which turned into one hundred single-spaced pages."
"Your output at ten also is impressive. What do you know about manic-depression?"
"Merck said lithium can induce coma. That's not a nice drug you put me on."
"The blood tests are making sure you won't get into trouble. And I've received the results from the last one: you're doing fine."
"What about Thorazine? Merck said it was an anti-psychotic." I glared at him.
"It's also a powerful tranquilizer. You need sleep . . . Remember my telling you that brain chemical imbalance can distort reality?"
"The reality of my reality is so clear, so pure, that if the world were to see as I do, it would be a perfect place."
"No doubt," he said earnestly. "But as you just pointed out, your reality is not that of the world's."
"That's why this work must be finished. This book will teach people to think as I do. Those drugs you’ve got me on will interfere with this mission."
"Have they interfered yet?"
"Stop twisting everything I say to fit your agenda." I lit a cigarette, sending out smoke in a long pointing stream. My composure was as fragile as that smoke.
"In mania, people can get so high that they fail to understand that they're harming themselves by not sleeping or eating. Have you made any large purchases lately?"
"Only for a wardrobe for the talk show tour I’ll be on as soon as The Book's published."
"I see . . . You’ve been off work since June, so there's no problem there."
"Work is the problem. It'll take too much time from Breaking Through to Happiness. But . . . How long do you think I can stay in Florida?"
"Another eight weeks or so, depending on how well you do."
"That long? That should be enough time to finish The Book." But what if it weren’t? Anxiety used its sharp claws on my insides.
"Definitely." He added that, if left untreated, the next stage of mania was acute paranoia, which could result in abandonment by family, friends and employer. Lacing his tale of imbalance was his repeated reference to loss of reality and an increase of anxiety.
Few words penetrated the gate I closed against him. The word depression kicked open that gate.
"Depression, repression, the fact is that suicide is the only answer when one can no longer bear the pain of fear and terror and despair. From the downside, death is the womb that life seeks."
He took off his glasses and polished them. His eyes looked smaller, watery. Pig eyes.
The man was an insatiable pig, always rooting around disorder.
He replaced his glasses. His eyes looked human again. But on and on he went about the consequences of manic-depression, stating and restating that death could result if one didn’t take the medicine, sleep enough, on and on. I was sick of the subject, sick of him. I needed to get back to the typewriter.
" . . . your anxiety attack a few weeks ago?"
"What?"
"I think that attack was triggered by brain chemicals shifting toward normality, catching you between opposing views."
Memory of that morning the Messiah disappeared took my breath away.
I clutched my head with both hands, trying to break the grip of horror.
Sound came as if through roaring water, closer, closer.
"Patricia! Look at me, Patricia! What's happening? Tell me. Patricia!"
He pulled my hands away from my head. Strands of hair dripped from my fingernails, hung between my fingers. Tears heated my face.
"Talk to me, Patricia. That's what I'm here for. Tell me what just happened." His soft drawl lulled me. I felt sleepy. My eyelids became too heavy to lift.
Blindly I used the tissue he placed in my hand. As I wiped my face, my Mentor sent my spirit spiraling upwards. "I'm fine," I said in a voice that quavered. I looked into his eyes. "I think I just had an anxiety attack . . . I'm fine now."
"What do you think brought it on?"
"You did." My anger again surprised me. "You keep harping on manic-depression." I glared at him. "You keep trying to pin disorder on me."
"I'm not trying to ‘pin’ anything on you," he said soothingly. "I want to help you."
"You sure did a good job of it today." Expressing anger was healthy when given good cause, my Mentor flashed, dissipating the guilt that my furious tone had generated.
Dr. Richard wouldn't budge from his stand.
One day he'd have to accept the new Bible, and my wellness, or lose step with the world.
* * *
Two weeks passed and still I couldn’t detect any change in the way I thought or felt. I would have felt the drugs by now. The doctor was wrong.

******************************************************************************
Message October 9th 11:26:20 PM - 11:43:06 PM


THE PHYSICAL SELF BETRAYS THE MIND
MAKES THE BODY OLD BEFORE TIME.

BUT.

THE MESSIAH WILL SAVE,

NOT ONLY THE WORLD,

BUT ME.

then why do I feel the cells of my body dying one by one

by one?

am I manic?

AM I?







CHAPTER ELEVEN










I woke up in a cold sweat, overwhelmed by fear and a terrible sense of emptiness. No warmth. No answering thought.
My skin felt hot, inside and outside; it ached and it hurt. My heartbeat gained force and presence.
He'd disappeared once before and he’d come back.
I struggled to sit up.
My body was so heavy I had trouble dragging it out of bed.
Thorazine and lithium had done this to me.
Groggy yet light-headed, I opened the door, headed out, and was knocked back by the brightness of the sun-drenched bathroom. He had come in a white light. He’d be back.
He won’t. He . . .
Unendurable dread hounded me until I found my parents in the kitchen.
"Why Honey, what's the matter?" my mother asked, drying her hands on a dish towel.
"I'm a little tired."
"You look better, Patricka," my father said. "But you still need a few more pounds."
"I’m only seven away from my pre-surgery weight — thanks to Mither's cooking and your bread." The grin I flashed him came naturally, easily. It felt good.
I took a bagel from the freezer, pried the halves free and put them in the toaster oven.
I depressed the lever. I jumped when it pinged.
Something else was wrong.
Anxiety slithered through me, coiling about the realization that words no longer pressed for release.
Fear lurched when the toaster door popped open.
The Book, oh yes. The Book.
"Patricka! Your breakfast," my father called.
"I'll be back!" I cried and hurried to the bible that would set the world free, hurrying to the work that would save me.
My hands hung above the keyboard, awaiting transmission. My hands started shaking with a violence that jarred. My hands fell into my lap.
There was no messiah.
Uurrghfwoom!
I was under blankets on the bed before realizing that the air conditioner fan had kicked in. Agony merged with my need to breathe.
I fought the covers, gasping for air, feeling as though I were strangling in the midst of an asthma attack.
Inhale, exhale.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Slow it down and keep going.
I was twisted by nausea. Bile stung my mouth, filled it, death at the end of its choking.
The door opened, the light went on, and I was in my mother's arms, comforted by her age-old cry, "Where does it hurt?" She cradled me, hugging me more tightly the more I sobbed, her voice the taste, the feel, of warmed honey. "Dear, Sweetheart, what's wrong, why were you screaming?"
Screaming?
I inhaled, exhaled. I tried to speak but my voice caught in my throat. I swallowed water from the glass on the night table. Slowly I whispered, "Ohmygod — I know. I know.”
“What do you know?”
“Dr. Richard was right, he was right. But . . . The book, my mind, oh Motherrr." Frenzy suffocated me. "Tell me what to do, to think, to say . . . I lost my mind. I lost it. Help me, please. Motherrr . . . " I hid my face in her breast, I clung to her, trying to escape the hot ringing that ignited my ears and tunneled through my head.
"Oh Honey, it's all right. It's okay. The worst is over. Do you understand? You'll be fine now, just fine," she crooned, combing my hair with her fingers. "You're back! You're on the mend! We'll celebrate tonight! Name your favorite restaurant and I'll make
reservations."
"Don't leave me!"
"I won't go anywhere without you. But let's go tell your father, he — "
"No! Not yet . . . I can't live with this. I can't ever trust myself again. Never. Oh Mither. I can't bear this. I believed I was typing the messiah’s book! Mithe . . . what will I do? What can I do? I can't get away from my mind . . . I'll never be safe again. Never."
Tiny wrinkles formed within tear spots on her shirt. If I thought about the wrinkles —
"Let's call Dr. Richard." She hugged me again. "He'll help you. Wash up and we'll call him."
"He can't help. No one can." It was cold, so cold, in the baring of this knowledge.
"You've had quite a shock. But you're okay now. The pills brought you back . . ." She gently she rubbed the sore place at the base of my neck. "And the longer you take
them, the better you'll feel. You've been sick, darling . . . The doctor can help you. He
already has! You need time to adjust, that's all. Try and relax . . . Try.
That's better . . . " She clasped me close, resting her cheek on my head, holding on to me.
"I'm so scared, my heart is beating so fast — you can feel it, can't you? It's going to explode! Tell me I'm dreaming. Tell me this isn't real." She took my hand in hers.
"Look at me, honey." She disengaged us without losing hold of me.
I turned my head, my eyes drawn to hers.
"The worst is over. And it was like a dream. You were sick, sweetheart. But you're better now, and you'll just keep getting better and better and then you'll go on to lead a normal life."
"Normal?" I extended my hand for balance and felt my tears flood her cheek. I saw the love in her eyes, the feel of it in her hands. "Life was perfect when I was 'crazy.' Life terrifies me now." I gripped her hands so tightly she flinched and gently pulled them away. "Mither, oh Mithe, I'm not sure I can ever leave this bed."
"Oh darling."
Our tears mingled.
"Wash up now and we'll call Dr. Richard. Maybe he can see you today."
Love filled me and curved a smile into my lips. "I love you so much, Mitheroo." Laughing joy spilled into my saying of her name. "You're all the doc I need. I'll get ready and then — let's go shopping!"
I slid into the fire-red jumpsuit I’d flown down in and surged down the hall to the kitchen. "Where's Daddy-O?"
"He must have left for work. Here — I just squeezed it. And — "
"I know the routine." I grinned.
"And here's Dr. Richard's number."
I wasn't ready to expose my latest revelation to him. "I already told you — you're all the doc I need! Now, man your wallet and let's go!"
I went to get my purse and found myself at the typewriter. I turned it on and, without thinking, I typed: "The power is within us all." No more words came.
There were no more words.
I plunged below sadness into despair.
"Are you ready?"
I made myself meet her in the hall. Suddenly I was bent over in laughter. "Mithe, oh dear little Mither, it's true what they say about being insane — I lost my mind and didn't know it! Do you know what this means?"
She expressed a nonverbal reply before getting into the car.
"It means the book is mine! I'm the one writing a bestseller! Isn't this the most wonderful news?"
My recent role as Vessel became a frequent, frightening intruder upon my dreams of celebrity.
The worst is over,” my parents promised, lifting me momentarily from the trough that fear dragged me through when again I was alone and couldn’t evade the fact I’d believed I was working for the messiah.
Visiting family and friends and reading novels occupied time once sped by writing, and time alone crept in its frightening pace filled with longing for my manic belief that I’d been so completely safe. I never would be safe again, and this knowledge burned me physically and metaphysically, kicking me into inescapable hell, right here in this life. I’d gotten out of previous hells. There was no way out of this one. I’d lost my mind. Nothing could change this fact.
Try as I could, I couldn't accept the fact I'd believed that I was transcribing the messiah’s messages, and that the world's fame and fortune were but a manuscript away. Recollection of my sleepless starvation and spending spree scared me the most. I actually had believed I’d been helping to save the world with love. Why hadn't I known I was in trouble?
I was still in trouble. I always would be in trouble.
Again my blood raced, my muscles tensed, they twitched, they strained within their thin-skinned sheath.
Physical discomfort rivaled my mental distress. Dr. Richard said this response was normal, under the circumstances.
A masseuse unknotted my muscles. Her daily intervention afforded brief relief. I recalled Merck's description of "accelerated muscular activity."
No longer driven to write, time became aimless and endless. I read Breaking Through to Happiness. Its florid convoluted sentences surprised me, as did its swelling, receding rhythms. Islands of insight seemed familiar, but it was as though the work had been written by someone else.
I read passages again. Nowhere was the messiah mentioned, and everywhere there were refinings of self-defining determinations into and out of love, and listings and listings of ways to keep and inspire love, the “ultimate comfort.” Indeed, as brother Michael had said, my messiah was me.
But I had discovered universal love from the center of madness. Luckily, love centered me now, an insight never to be forgotten, an insight so overpowering in mania that only a god could guide it.
I put away the manuscript.




***************************************************************
Messages1981




LOVE


DIES ON THE CORPSE OF TRUST.


INESCAPABLE BETRAYAL.


IRRECONCILABLE. INTRACTABLE.















CHAPTER TWELVE










Night embraced the terrace and breezes came through the screens as my father dealt the first hand of Hearts after dinner. We hadn’t played since the week of my surgery last June, before my mind betrayed me.
My father quickly and briskly distributed the cards as I heard myself asking what Dr. Richard had said after sending me to the waiting room the first time we saw him.
I looked up in time to see my parents’ eyes meet.
"We pass to the left and you lead, Patricka," my father said, his tone matter of fact as he sorted his hand and nodded to Mithe.
She gathered her cards and said, "He told us you were manic and said he wanted to hospitalize you."
"So he did want to lock me up." I concentrated on putting my cards in order, visions of movie mental wards obscuring my view. On the other hand, that movie, The Snake Pit, had exposed that horror and surely had extinguished it.
“The two of Clubs must be in the kitty,” my father observed.
I tossed it on the table still unable to meet his eyes, or Mithe’s.
Mother said, "He was afraid you wouldn't take the medication." She covered my play with the six.
My father took the trick with the ace, and as he studied the face-down cards from the kitty, he assembled his neutral face — poker face, Mithe called it. He led with the queen of Clubs and the look he gave me was unbearably sweet as he said, "But we knew you'd take the medicine, and there were two of us to one of you."
I glanced at his queen of Clubs and, in the spirit of tradition, cried, "Watch out, Mither, he's going for it again." I was adding a low Club to his when the doctor’s assumption hit me. "How dare he assume I wouldn't take his pills."
"He didn't know you, dear," my mother said, taking the trick with the king, leading with a low Spade.
My father put down the ace with a decisive gesture just as I cried, "Why didn't your take his advice?"
"We thought you'd be better off with us — you'd already been in the hospital twice this summer," my amazing father replied.
Gratitude filled me, brought tears to my eyes. "Most parents would have unloaded their offspring in a shrink tank — what was I like?" I handed him the queen of Spades, hoping to give a Heart to Mithe later, hoping to delay his answer.
"Bad enough," he grumbled. He looked sad when he returned my gaze. "There were times when we were afraid we would have to commit you. No one could tell you anything. You were either talking, typing, eating or sleeping. Conversation was rarely possible. But you barely ate and couldn't sleep more than three hours a night. We practically had to tear you away from that typewriter, and even then, you'd be at it again in no time." He shook his head.
Mother’s low Spade completed the trick.
He collected the cards and aligned the pack with the neat stack of his others, none of which included a heart, not to mention the 13 point Queen of Spades. He led with a high Club.
My cards blurred, their fan closing in my clutch. "How did you put up with me?"
"Out of desperation there comes a way," he said into a long pause.
My heart melted.
I threw in the king, hoping Mithe had run out of Clubs and could throw in a heart — I never could keep track of cards played.
I couldn't believe we were still playing Hearts, what great hearts my parents had.
Mithe threw in the two of Hearts and I took the trick, stacking it neatly in front of me, polishing it a bit with my elbow. Mithe and I grinned at each other and looked at Father to see how he dealt with defeat. "There's a limit to desperation, and to luck in cards," he said, his expression wry and tender.
Mother said, "We couldn't find a way to reach you — "
"How long did that go on?" My insides kept cramping.
"Until you realized the messiah wasn't real." Mother's reply gentled me. "Six weeks, seven? But you've come back to us, Sweetheart. You'll be fine now."
I was overwhelmed by love. "You never once implied that anything serious was wrong. You included me in your social life, lunching and dining with your friends. You never acted as if I were in trouble, not to mention insane."
"Why would we? We were out of our minds, too."

* * *

Speeding toward my eighth week in Florida, I was at the typewriter again, infused by the joy of creation. But this time I knew the work was mine. I actually typed upper and lowercase.
Perfect Worlds began after I won another hand of solitaire, and at the typewriter, found myself comparing man to a deck of cards. I was fascinated by the deck's intertwinings, the perfect equality of suits, each card of each suit unique and complete, and equal members of the family. I then related man's interference, how he used a cards to play some game that followed arbitrary rules, which set one card above another. I loved my metaphor for the mentality that perpetuated prejudice and dehumanized people, civilizations, countries.
The piece made sense, the rhythm wasn’t convoluted, as it became in psychosis. It’s thinking gave fed me self-confidence.
Even my father read it, first page to last. He and Mithe said they understood it.
The lines of my thoughts were straightening.
But I was still the night-watchman, sleep was still elusive. And now and again fear of recurrence overcame me.
* * *
Chicago became a symbol of wellness. I missed everyone I'd ever met there. I was consumed by a longing to return.
I told the doctor I wanted to go home. He said I wasn't ready yet. But I was back on my feet and could shop, cook, back to full steam ahead. I was ready. But my protest remained silent and torn. I wanted more time with my creators.
As the days passed, desire to go home increased and I voiced my mounting wish to get back to my life. Dr. Richard said we'd talk about it at next week’s session. Anger flooded me. He'd no right to keep me in Florida against my will.
My parents urged me to stay; they kept saying the doctor had my best interests at heart. I wanted to please them, but I had to go home. Only there would I find evidence of myself, the me I was before the madness, forever more to haunt me, its ghost strongest in Florida where I crashed back into reality and lived my parents' lifestyle, not mine.
That evening, the phone rang, I heard my mother speaking to someone. When she hung up and saw me, she said Dr. Richard was worried that, if I went back to Chicago now, I'd stop medication and never seek treatment.
Outrage burst inside me with ringing intensity. How dare he speak to Mithe about me that way. To Mithe, not me. How dare he not take my word? Every detail of his behavior paraded through my mind, sharpening the knife of my fury.
I wrote him a letter in which I informed him that my parents had no trouble honoring my word, and that I didn’t think much of his ability to assess character — wasn’t that a priority for psychiatrists? Day after day I dwelled on his transgression, feeling stronger and stronger, thriving on his treason, anger livid, its focus a welcome external.
I wrote and rewrote the letter, embellishing my deposition, high on anger over a cause that had nothing to do with my stint as the messiah’s vessel.
Since I’d had no idea that I’d exited the “real” world, fear of it happening again terrorized me when I couldn’t distract myself from that knowledge. Perhaps the next time I lost my mind, I would die of starvation. Why didn’t he know that I wouldn’t dare resume my life in Chicago without a psychiatrist. A watch dog. But I never would give the new doctor my parents’ phone number.
My anger reached a level of feeling that frightened me, fear growing with each new version of the letter. I took the last one to my mother and asked her to read it.
"I'd be angry, too," she said, "but perhaps you should put this away for a while. Then, in a day or two, write it again. It may be a little harsh as it is now."
Her support slowed the fury that drove me, and when I reread the letter a few days later, I toned down its venom.
Mother said she thought I should send it, and with its mailing, rage released me. I hated rage. My sister turned her rage on me no doubt soon after I was born. Maybe I was one in the black and white photo of the four of us: Maggie on my father’s lap, I on my mother’s; I and my parents were looking at the camera (I seem to be about eighteen months old in that shot); Maggie was snarling at me, a portrait of fury. Her rage erupted at the most unexpected times, and I hadn’t spent time alone with her in ten years. Rage twists my insides and chokes my breath. It panics me. I don’t know why I was so terrified to be alone with her when she’d break into rage.
Dr. Richard was holding my letter when I next saw him. His apology was warm, soothing the last of my disturbance. He said that since I didn't have a psychiatrist in Chicago yet, we'd talk about my departure next week. And, he cautioned, I was still on the high side of mania.
"But I don't believe in the messiah anymore, I'm not writing twenty-four hours a day anymore . . . "
"How much are you sleeping now?"
"Maybe five hours."
"And usually?"
"Seven to eight."
"And your weight?"
"I can't seem to gain, oh . . . "
"You'll soon start to keep weight on."
Before the next session, Jess called with the name of the doctor Stan had found for me. Dr. Richard knew him by reputation, and though he thought I was still too high on mania, he agreed to let me go.
Before we said goodbye, I asked him if I would escape depression.
"You might. Your brain chemicals could stabilize and not drop."
"How will I know when I'm not manic anymore?"
"When you sleep seven to eight hours a night, and gain weight and keep it. And your muscles will relax — you'll know." His smile was endearing.
I shuddered, still raw from self-discovery. When I stood to leave, we shook hands, our left hands grasping each other’s forearms. We hugged and he opened the door to the waiting room; he told Mother that the doctor in Chicago had a good reputation, that he specialized in manic-depressive disorder, that I would be in good hands.
"Thank you, Dr. Richard," I said, sudden sadness penetrating our last moments. "I've been difficult, and I'm sorry, but on the other hand, what can you expect from a madwoman?" He grinned and I hugged him. He'd saved my mind, saved me. I always would love him.
**********************************************************************
December 15th 5:27 A.M. — 5:31 A.M.

I AM WITHOUT THE ME I KNEW AND TRUSTED

CAST WITHOUT ANCHOR ON THE SEAS OF SANITY

MIND MAGNET TO A

DIFFERENT COMPASS.

ENCOMPASSING ULTIMATE LOSS.

NOTHING NOW BUT

FLESH; BONES

FEAR






CHAPTER THIRTEEN






Anxiety collided with euphoria as our flight to Chicago descended. I reached across the aisle and touched my father’s arm. He smiled and pointed to Mother's head on his shoulder. I nodded and tried to swallow the words of emotions flooding my tongue, my dear dear Mitheroo so vulnerable, danger still threatening, my fears about to spill into sound and wake her, my Mither, dear Mithe.
I withdrew a pad of paper from my tote bag, a pen from my purse and wrote until seatbacks and tray tables up.
As we circled O'Hare, excitement swirled inside me. I couldn’t wait to be again with Jess and Susan, friends, guardian angels, like Mithe. In just a few hours!
* * *
My parents rested in my bedroom. I'd never slept in the guestroom before — they usually stayed at the Knickerbocker.
I loved lying on the grey velvet sofa bed, listening to music within walls glazed to the sheen of antique mahogany-red leather books, cozy heart-warmth. My room’s window overlooked the brick terraced backyard with its tall stockade fence against which wisteria climbed, as if to counteract the dark alley, its rows of garbage dumpsters backed into brick walls of apartment buildings on LaSalle Street. My guestroom window faced a brick wall, turning the room into twilight from sunup to sundown.
I hugged myself. I was really really home. Everything would be okay from now on.
Except that it was Thursday already and Mithe and Daddy-O were leaving Monday morning. I'd have to drop them at O'Hare on the way back from visiting Michael et al in Milwaukee.
Monday afternoon held my first appointment with the specialist in manic-depression, Dr. Geltzer — hand-picked for me by Jessie’s beau, Stan. But after that, the afternoon yawned, as if trying to catch its breath. All is well, all is well.
Maybe Jess would come over for dinner.
How unlike me not to “vant to be alone” and soak in all the solitude I’d missed these last three months. Not to mention that, since the second half of my stay in Florida, I’ve been afraid of what lay in wait for me right behind my eyes. This too-new realization dropped me into a black hole. Invisible sucker punches doubled me over, fear shrieking, sending me to see if my parents were asleep. I soon would be alone with my mind, and fresh memories of the most horrifying time of my life.
Jess and Susan were a few blocks away. Jake was often free weekday afternoons.
I hunted down the living room phone and Jessie’s number came to me without thinking about it. Her voice didn’t seem any closer to me than it had in Florida, but we’d see each other at Susan's for drinks at seven, and Eduardo's at eight for dinner.
I replaced the receiver and the sudden silence reverberated. Susan’s machine answered. I looked into the dining room. The table gleamed; not even one sheet of paper marred its beautiful grain. Three months ago, it had been the stage of my fall into madness.
Jess and Susan must have cleaned up. Ah, stacks of paper sat on my dining room chairs. Evidence of my unexpected tour of outer space. That idea made me grin.
I actually had believed the messiah and I were saving the world.
Heart-racing, heart-thumping horror filled me.
I'd believed — how I'd loved that complete sense of safety! I'd loved believing I was bringing love to the world.
But returning to reality gave me the worst endless moments of my life.
The “positivity” of it all had enthralled me. Universal love wasn’t in my mind before I lost it. I'd answered long term tough questions —
Thoughts of apostles, disciples and zealots at first surprised me, and then I felt a connection, or at least an understanding of them —
Hot perspiration drenched me and I thought I was going to faint. That threat soon passed, leaving me in a coat of dried sweat.
I took a shower, and as luck would have it, my parents were awake when I emerged from the bathroom.
Euphoria reclaimed me.
Jess was at Susan's when we arrived. "You don't look like a maniac," she observed, her grin face-wide, her soft, short curls springing back away from her face as she stretched out her arms and came toward me.
"You look so wonderful!" I cried and hugged her, hugging Susan, propelling the three of us into a huddle, drawing in my parents. Voices filled the air and arms encircled bodies and everyone kissed cheeks, everyone laughed. And then we sat down, drinks in hand.
My father didn’t sit down, he held up his glass of scotch, dipped it toward my friends and said, "Susan . . . Jessie . . . Thank you for helping Patricia. We love you, like family. You're not only good looking — you knew who Patricka’s messiah really was."
Jess raised her glass to me, mirth lighting her voice, her eyes. "Obletzkrieg, I told you to find a muse, not the messiah. Only you, Obletzkrieg! Only you!"
"You have wonderful friends, Obletzkrieg," my father said, his enjoyment of Jessie’s nickname for me illustrated by his playful enunciation and grin.
Suddenly we all were laughing so hard we had to put down our drinks.
"Oh, Daddy-O, you're so right! And you and Mithe are my original best friends! Everyone's wonderful! So very won-der-ful!" I returned to my spot and rubbed the ankle I’d banged on the coffee table on my way to hug him.
Love also was an expert masseuse, relaxing my muscles as I looked from face to face. I felt whole. Secure. I felt like me.
Michael teased me about the messiah. Cindy comforted me during suddenly shed tears. Jacob and Eta were loving, busy as always and, thankfully, oblivious to my struggle.
Life was as always, only more so, so completely filled with love.
Time flew.
The drive home went too fast. O'Hare approached. It was time to let my parents go.
I watched them disappear through the automatic doors.
Loss swallowed me.
Horns honked. A policeman knocked on my window. I put the car in gear.
Desolation lifted at the sight of Chicago rising into the November-blue sky. I turned the volume up and sang with Bob Dylan.
Home, I dressed for Dr. Geltzer in my new, as yet unworn, Shogun jacket and jodhpurs, matching my conquering spirit.
I entered his waiting room suddenly nervous. It was beige on beige on beige. He was suited to match. Tortoiseshell glasses — outsized to downsize a bulbous nose perhaps — hid his eyes. His sparse, generic hair was short, a prop for his shining pate. His jacket and tie were a neat front for his paunch. When he spoke, his tone was carefully modulated.
"Come into my office, would you please?"
The bizz of mosquitoes in my ears sounded louder. I gripped my shoulder bag strap with both hands, trying to stop them from shaking. I followed him through a short hall and another door. Beige walls and carpeting and north woods motel furnishings.
How original: a black-framed van Gogh print on the wall behind his desk, the only color in the room. Black-framed certificates, diplomas and awards were arranged across the wall facing a beige curtained window that harbored the air conditioner obligatory in every vintage office building in Chicago.
I selected the chair furthest from his.
He sat down behind his desk, drew his glasses down his nose and eyed me like a predator.
The silence grew intolerable.
"Well," I began, adding, "Since Jess already briefed you on my condition, I'll just tell you what I want."
He allowed an almost imperceptible dip of his head.
"I take lithium five times a day, and three Thorazine at bedtime. I understand a blood test and a mood check are necessary once a month — every other month. Will you take me on?"
Again his head inclined just so far before he slowly looked up at me and said, "Have you considered psychotherapy?" His eyes bored into mine.
"There's no need for that," I replied, ever the cavalier Shogun. "My mind is fine — my body might need therapy without drug regulation though."
"Fine," he replied without emotion. "But first, I need the details of your manic episode.”

“Didn’t you get this information from Dr. Richard? “
He affirmed with a nod that he had and pointed to the file on his desk. “Are you married? What do you do for a living?" He kept his eyes on that file, which he fingered throughout his inquisition. "What are your interests? . . . Any previous experience with mania or depression?" Occasionally, he made notes, but not when I mentioned my suicidal depression that followed major surgery fourteen years ago — or the fact I went on thyroid medication two years later, in 1969. Dr. Richard had found those facts significant.
(My father's a horse.) That thought was so strong, I feared I'd uttered it aloud, but not even his eyelashes stirred. He not only had no idea what I was thinking, he hadn't one shred of interest in what I was saying.
He was a poor second to Dr. Richard. But as long as he monitored the medication, he could be tolerated once a month. I didn't have to like him. I'd be out of trouble soon.
I watched him extract an envelope from the file folder and, with deliberate precision, he removed a letter and silently read it. At last he said, "This is Dr. Richard's summary of your case. He included last week's blood test results, but I shall require another test within the next day or two." He scribbled on a prescription slip and handed it to me. "Your time is up," he announced without changing his inflection. "I'll see you again," he checked the calendar, "Tuesday, November 18. Furthermore, I am in full agreement with Dr. Richard: do not return to work for two weeks. Any questions?"
I stood, rubbing the strap of my bag. "Will I avoid depression?"
"You might." He shuffled papers on his desk.
I left him feeling reassured. Persona not withstanding, the man agreed with Dr. Richard, a man I'd learned to trust. No work for two more weeks. No depression.
I walked up State Street, looking in the windows of Carson's and Fields, touching for luck their cornerstones, hurrying past lots under construction. I turned onto Wacker Drive, following the curve of the Chicago River to Michigan Avenue, hastening my pace over the drawbridge, unable to stop eyeing the waters below the grate walkway, their churning turning my stomach, spreading anxiety.
Dread grabbed me. I froze. I was falling, down down down into the river, off balance and drowning in fear. My hands shot away from my sides, clawing the air, flailing, banging against cold metal, grasping then gripping iron.
I wept when I realized I was still on the bridge above the water.
I tore my gaze away from the river below and sought sight of the lake on my right, more precious than any treasure harbored in the shops along the Magnificent Mile. Chicago's beauty was enthralling, its juxtaposition of man and nature a timeless, ever-changing glorious drama.
I breathed in slowly, keeping my eyes on the white-capped lake beyond the city’s skyline. I breathed out slowly.
Evidently my chemical imbalance was physical as well. My body still trembled from my envisioned plunge. My heart still pounded.
Suddenly the joy of triumph purged me of fear. I, me, myself and I, had conquered panic simply by changing the physical point of my view!
Laughing, I hurried across the bridge to the solid sidewalk, the sky a massing tumble of angry grays above the pewter waves of Lake Michigan. Raw winds clawed my scarf, my coat, my hair. I stuck gloved hands into pockets and thought about Dr. Geltzer, sidestepping litter and pedestrians.
He was nothing like Dr. Richard. But I didn’t believe in the messiah anymore. I was okay now. I didn't need another Dr. Richard, despite my fear of coma, of insanity, of the unknowns of manic-depression. I'd be out of trouble soon.
My watch — I still wore my father's heavy, multipurpose timepiece — had become my most important possession. It was almost three. I wanted to see Jake, and Jess was coming to dinner.
There was plenty of time for everything.
Happiness took me into a reckless rush of feeling spurred by my escape from depression. I was okay! I'd just conquered anxiety, I'd vanquished disorder, escaped the messiah — of course I'd elude depression!



***************************************************************************
Journal November 1981



Mithe said, “I believe in you, dear.”













CHAPTER FOURTEEN










As my front door closed, I hurried to change into jeans and a sweatshirt and attacked my rooms with vacuum, mops and cloths. Another stint in the bathroom, and I was as polished as my home.
Singing "We are marching to Pretoria" as loudly as my voice could stretch, I pulled on red corduroys, red boots, a red cotton turtleneck and an oversized white fisherman sweater. I grabbed my car keys and flew to the lot on the other side of Wells Street.
I could see Jake at the bar through the window of Butch McGuire’s. Inside, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the interior twilight, I heard Jake laughing. And then I stood a few feet behind him and caught his eye in the mirror behind the bar.
He whirled around. "Patricia!" he cried, his face bright with pleasure. He met me halfway, hugged me and herded me to a stool.
"When are you free?" I whispered, blood heating.
"Tomorrow might be possible," he said, squeezing my neck.
"Start prepping for tomorrow now! See ya!" I spun around and raced out the door.
Jess was due at six. I rushed through the grocery store at Clark and Division, racing up and down aisles, grabbing from shelves in a frantic hurry. The wait at the checkout counter fired my impatience.
At last at home, I hurled ingredients into pots and pans, stirring, tasting, adjusting the flames for each. Dinner was prepared.
An hour remained till Jessie arrived. I lit a fire, arranged Brie and crackers on a plate, put it on the coffee table. I couldn't settle down, I couldn't relax. That much energy was a pain in the butt. I thought about finding the typewriter but set the table for dinner. And I paced the rooms of my home.
The doorbell. I flew down the stairs and greeted Jess in the foyer. "We haven't a moment to waste!" I cried, pulling her up the steps.
She laughed and shook her head.
We settled before the fire with wine. Brie melted on the plate and the Budapest String Quartet played Brahms on the stereo.
"Welcome home, buddy!" Jess caroled from her favorite chair, the raw-silk white one that had been leather in my father's first law office — more than fifty years ago. She lifted her glass to mine.
I lost wine to the floor and mopped it with a napkin, checking for her reaction.
"Stan sends greetings," she said warmly. "He's fine. Harried, overworked, but fine. Things are fine between us, too."
"You look like things are fine! Work, too?"
"Same old thing — kill to make the deadline, then rewrite the damn ad fifty million times. How was Doc Geltzer? What did you think of him?"
"The man's a medical mechanic. He'll do the job." I slathered cheese on crackers and handed one to her.
"But did you like him? Can he help you?" Her preoccupation with Geltzer annoyed me.
The wine sloshed precariously close to the rim of the glass as I brought it to my lips. "Let me say this about that — before we shelve him," I said in my best broad Boston.
"Okay, senator, let's hear about 'that' and then I'll drop the subject."
"The man's a pompous ass. He's beige on beige on beige. Worse," I leaned toward her and whispered, "he's condemned to life without humor."
"Then why don't we . . . "
The kitchen timer went off. "Saved by the proverbial!" I sang out and jumped up to rescue dinner.
Loath to leave the fire, I loaded place settings and dinner on trays and returned to the living room.
"If you want to start tossing your weight around again, you better eat more than that," Jess observed when I set down my fork.
"Cute, but I've pounds enough now to put a punch behind my words." Laughter felt good. It felt natural. I scanned the room, eyes lingering on two of the oils I’d painted in New York when I was in my twenties. "I wasn't that bad an artist, once, and I’m going to give it a go these next and last two weeks of freedom, but . . . “
"You still have that talent," she cried. "Paint again! It'll come back to you, you’ve nothing to lose!" Her excitement was contagious.
"Maybe, but if the artist in me doesn’t return, I just don’t know . . . " I looked at the steeplechase begun Memorial Day Weekend three years ago. It had become an annual test of bravery: keep the life and improve the action. Maybe this year, fear of failure wouldn’t send my muse away.
“Patricia?” Jess said in a warning tone.
"No failure can be worse than finding out I’d believed I was working for a god.”
"So listen, Patricia . . . "
I could tell by her tone that I wouldn't like the rest of her message. "About that Geltzer character . . . Stan has a list — "
"Stan always has a list. At least I've seen the first man on mine! Or have you made contact with a doc from yours?"
"No, not yet. I told you! I'll start therapy when I come back from Mexico . . . Now. You don't seem thrilled with Geltzer and I know we can find you a more compatible doc."
"Oh, Jessie. Geltzer's as good a drug jockey as anyone — better, according to Stan. I don't have to share my deepest, darkest with him. I see him only once a month — like the curse — which, thank life, I'll never have to deal with again!"
We lit cigarettes. I was pleased to note that my hands shook less than hers.
"You won't get into mental trouble again, either,” Jess declared, her curls again nestled around her head. “Are you okay about that, buddy? I mean really okay? I'd be having a hard time if I'd lost my mind."
"Psychosis was nature's last sentence, a bit harsher than pneumonia and peritonitis, but, as you said, it's over.” I let myself slide into the far corner of my tuxedo loveseat; my chin dropped to my chest until my head sank into the green velvet pillow.
"But are you really okay, buddy?"
"I'm sane and sanely happy — "
"If still on the high side of mania," she laughingly interceded, breaking off, leaning forward. "Patricia, you're in territory foreign to me, maybe you should talk to a pro about it."
"Like Geltzer?" I snorted.
"There's a Dr. Richard in this town for you."
"Oh Jess, I don't need anyone. The worst is over. I'm fine, I know what's real and what isn't, the seat belt's on, and this ride'll be over soon — Geltzer said I could escape depression! I tracked Jake down at Butch McGuire's, we dine tomorrow night."
Her smile seemed forced. She'd never be happy for me about Jake.
"The messiah's a great story for cocktails!"
She looked startled. She said, "When did you realize he wasn't real?"
"Five or six weeks ago. That was — " My heart stopped beating; icy sweat chilled me. I gagged and fought to breathe.
"Patricia! Patricia! It's me, Jess! Hey!" I heard her words but they were muffled by the beating of my heart. Pressure crushed my shoulders inward. My teeth closed on my tongue. Through pain I grew aware of her touch. "Oh, Jess . . . "
Anxious eyes swam through a blur of red and then I saw their blueness, and the curl of her hair. Everything came back. "Oh, Jess. That trip into psychosis was the greatest high I've ever known — " Tears coursing from my eyes heated my cheeks, splashed my sweater.
She released my shoulders to wrap her arms around me. "Steady, old pal. I'm here, it's okay. Go ahead and cry. Losing your mind is worth a good cry. Go ahead, let it go. That's good. Good," she said gently, smoothing the back of my sweater, ending each stroke with a pat.
Tears flushed fear from my mind as weakness spread through my body, uncoiling muscles and sinews, stroking me into a state of quiescence. I pillowed my head in her lap, locking my wrists behind her back.
"Shush, shush," she murmured, her hands a supportive pressure on my shoulder, warm and soothing.
"What do you charge an hour?" I raised my head to meet her eyes.
She hugged me and withdrew from me, picking up her wine before returning to the channel-back chair.
"I wonder why I got the messiah and not the devil."
"What I find most interesting is the fact you never once thought that you were the messiah!"
"People kept saying that my messiah was me, which of course sounded crazy. I made so many connections, brilliant connections, I’d thought. So brilliant, they couldn't possibly be mine."
"Stream of consciousness writing uncovers unrealized perceptions — "
"It might reveal repressed dreams," I cried excitedly. "Do it Jess. Let paper carry your burden!"
"Maybe some day, but for now, I have to turn feelings into fiction."
"Spend a weekend here with your journal. Come on! It'll work."
"I appreciate your offer, but I'm not ready to tackle my demons head on. Not yet — they ain’t no messiah."
"Too bad!"
"You're a screwball, but I love you, buddy. And listen to me: if you ever get nervous, or scared or anxious or anything, call me, whatever the time. Take down Stan's number. If you can't reach me, leave a message with his service. I'll get back to you the minute I can. And Stan answers his phone at any hour. Okay?"
We hugged before we parted. Once I buzzed her through the gate, I was more alone than I'd been before her arrival.
The medication-mosquitoes buzzing my ears increased in number and decibels; the trembling of my body doubled. My teeth clacked and my nails clicked on the table in rhythm to the speeding beat of my body.
I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt like I'd swallowed a bottle of Dexedrine. I'd tried one of those pills once in the 1960s to make it through work after an all-nighter. It made me so jittery, so agitated, so confused, upset and sleepless, that I never took another one.
No one slept down the hall. It was too late to call anybody. I fled to the kitchen for a drink of water and found myself on hands and knees scrubbing the floor I’d washed that afternoon.
What I needed was a dog.
I'd name the dog Watcher and he'd be big and black and strong. He'd be warmhearted and playful. He would save me from myself.
And with that thought came the way to make friends with my sister Maggie. Her world was horses and dogs, which we once shared. She'd help me find Watcher, and we'd find positive ground based on mutual love, just like my messiah had instructed.
I switched the classical station to rock. And I danced, exercising nervous energy produced by revelation. And then I changed the sheets on my bed.
By four, I stood in front of a blazing fire, glass of wine in hand, its liquid a shining, fire-lit bauble.
Above the mantlepiece hung the unfinished steeplechase painting. Three dark horses, three jockeys in silks, raced over fences on a course of revisions, their positions changing every year — all but the leader, the only one with signs of life.
I set the thirty-nine-by-fifty inch work on the floor against a wall. I switched on every lamp in the living room, tilting each shade to throw light on the canvas. In a rush of excitement, I went to the parlor closet and grabbed brushes and paints, palette and turpentine, an old sheet to protect the floor. I sat down in front of the painting.
A jockey on a brilliant white challenger emerged beneath my brush. He was powerful, that grand snowy stallion, and he was flying over the fence, flashing his heels at the dark horse behind him, gaining on the one in the lead. Only the rump of the original leader was visible now, giving the center to the white charger carrying me out of madness.
After three Memorial Day weekends and one lonely, early November night, it was finished. This accomplishment set reality in concrete. The world was fine and my mind was okay and I'd removed another long term thorn.
Evidently I’d needed to lose my mind in order to answer my question about Gary. I'd had to land on the high side of mania in order to finish the painting begun when Gary and I had ended. Only now did that painting glow with surging life and color and passion. The gains of madness were adding up.
I cleaned the brushes in the kitchen sink and unlocked and unchained the back door. Standing on my small back porch, I looked upon a tangle of naked branches, dark shadows stirring in moonlight. The air brushed against me cold and sharp. I took it quickly into my lungs, its rush cleansing me of smoke and uncertainty.
The moon begged to have its portrait painted. "I'll do it," I said out loud. And I filled with self-confidence. My soul was back. My spirit was whole again, for the first time in three years. I could paint again. This was my gift from the messiah.
Around eight, I slept blanketed before charring embers.



********************************************************************
Journal January 1982




HOME AGAIN.

never again at home within.










PART II: FROM UP TO DOWN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN












"You don't seem that high anymore." Jess delivered that observation as I handed her a glass of wine and we retreated to our usual positions in my living room.
As I sank into my green velvet sofa, tucking my legs beneath me, I said, “I do believe you’re right. I don’t seem to be speeding all the time anymore. Actually, now that you mention it, I feel really solid. Hey!” I stretched out my hands toward her and fanned my fingers. “Look! They barely shake.”
“See what I mean?”
“But Jess, why wasn’t I telling you this news?"
"You’re in the middle of it, Obletzkrieg, and I don't see you every day. You've definitely slowed down. You sound like the old you again, too."
"No more nonstop singsong, as Michael once put it. Which, upon reflection, could account for the Baroque rhythm of my writing in those days. I guess I should be grateful that I didn’t end up on corners preaching to the pedestrians.”
Jessie’s blue eyes glinted; she looked away and tossed her head, her curls swinging forward, concealing her intention. Her curls swept back into place when she looked up at me and said, "Ahhh, but you did initiate conversations with strangers. Which really worried me — your subject was always love." Her eyes were laughing when she said that.
"I concede. And alas, my dear friend, I also confess that, like you, I have come to fear solitude. It’s an open invitation to panic — What’s your score these days for panic attacks?”
“Actually, none, not for almost three months. A record.”
“One you attribute to Stan?” It was fun teasing her about her gradual fall into love, love, love.
“Sure, yes, and to you, The Group, and wine, and song — the singing I do on Sundays is at the typewriter, of course.” She grinned and mimicked Groucho Marx, her cigarette a puny stand-in for his cigar stub.
“I haven’t sung in a few months. I’m going to find those stacks of paper and see what’s there.” The idea excited my curiosity.
“Listen, ‘Palomine-o,’ the way you racked up those reams, it’ll take you a while to get through them. But once you do, I’d like to take a look, too.”
“Jess! Didn’t you get enough of it the first time around?”
“I never read what you wrote when you were in Florida.”
“If I find any pearls, I’ll hand them over, gladly. They could be hilarious. But let’s toast to being panic free for a few months, may it always keep its distance.”
She raised her glass of wine as if to salute that idea, took a sip and set down the goblet again, returning her eyes to mine.
“Jessie, sometimes I start shaking and have to fight for air whenever I remember what I just got out of.”
“Ah, but as you just said, you are out of it. You are mastering it, buddy, you’re working, you’re back in action.” Her cheeks looked as though she were facing the sun setting in the Carribean.
“I sure do appreciate these pep talks of yours, Ma’am.“
"You're not the first — "
"To live on tobacco and aqua?"
"Some dined at the Last Supper," Jess said softly, so softly, I almost didn’t hear her.
"Yes, and given my recent experience, one could say I've had a religious education after all, however unconventional."
"Unconventional is your middle name, Obletzkrieg."
"Right again. Also, I must remind us that I finished my steeplechase painting during my first night home alone in more than three months. My spirit again lives on canvas!”
“We’re lucky we can channel our demons through art,” Jess said. “But, to change the subject, have you lost weight? You also look a little pale.”
Surprised by her unexpected question, I said, “I don’t know about weight, but I imagine my morning’s toilette has faded like the day. I also have a hard time forgetting that the bomb's in place. It could detonate any minute. And then again I’d be slaving for some figment, sacrificing sleep and food in the name of love."
"Obletzkrieg, your bomb's been defused. Thorazine and lithium nuked it. Now try relaxing, exercising, getting fresh air. And as one who’s known you before, during, and to date, I'd say you’re leveling, wouldn't you?"
"Why Jessie, it's so nice of you to think that I could have an opinion." Instant laughter overcame us.
In the lull of our silence, Jess sipped wine then said: “You've come through fire. You’re bound to run into the occasional hot spot. You're the bravest person I know. Think about that every time one of those hot spots burns you."
"There's nothing brave about me," I moaned, or whined.
"You're back to life-as-usual." Jess looked like she was about to wag her finger at me.
"My life will never be usual again, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about that."
"You haven’t given up."
"You always say, ‘And this too shall end.’"
* * *
I informed family and friends that I'd be me again soon, because of course I wasn’t going into a depression: not everyone did, both doctors had said so.
Thorazine and lithium may have returned me to sanity, but only Valium seemed to suppress the hot fear and horror that now threatened to boil over every night between lights out and sleep. Instead of the occasional ten milligram Valium, I took it nightly.
Now I needed double, sometimes triple that dose.
Red alert was rough. If I were a dog, my hackles would be raised permanently.
On the other hand, I liked having my muscles tight and tuned, as if I worked out daily. It was doubtful that I’d make much money selling fear as the greatest exercise ever. And madness actually did have its plus sides, such as falling in love with words, self-discovery, glazing my bedroom walls in one afternoon. And going further into love than I ever dared or cared to go again.
This fact manacled me to fear whenever I couldn’t contain it, distract it, ignore it.
Lucky thing it was, meeting Jess back in 1976. We reduced fear for each other. And she was right. My old self was visible again. I was back to my usual weight. I also slept seven or eight hours on week nights, twelve on weekends, and recently, fourteen, fifteen — making up for lost sleep at last.
Lithium still radioed swarming mosquitoes; it made my hands shake; it made thirst a paramount need — gum became as important as nicotine.
Lithium also limited me to two drinks a day, which saved me from the hell of blackouts, waking up with bruised and cut legs, and torn and bloodied hose. It was a hollow, awful feeling knowing that, no matter how much I dredged my memory, or how many details my companions supplied, their tales hadn’t been the least bit familiar to me. That zone of twilight mirrored my new reality, which wouldn’t switch off without at least one blue ten mg. Valium.
Until I needed lithium, I never paid attention to how many times wine filled my glass. At home alone, after a Cabernet with dinner, I drank diet cola by the liters, my thirst never quenched for long. Obviously, I wasn’t an alcoholic. But those blackouts — but they were history.
My conflict with lithium amused me, sometimes, when I considered printing reminders to hang in the kitchen and bathroom: LITHIUM ISN’T FOREVER.
Anxiety still ran me when I ran out of distractions, but I hadn’t had a panic attack since last fall when I’d confronted the “real” reality about the state of my mind. It never had occurred to me that I’d been in any danger. That’s what scared me the most.
But I was home, and I was safe from depression — both psychiatrists had said so.
* * *
Perhaps the first fall of snow coincided with a debilitating drain on my energy.
A stream of sadness opened and deepened, subterranean sorrow in the belly of my soul. Yet I was lucky. Every time panic stirred, Jess, Susan or Michael had answered my call and wouldn't let me get off the phone until their view changed mine.
Jess was the only one who also knew the need to die, and the paralyzing horror of panic, the fatigue of anxiety. Every time I pictured her in a freak accident, I couldn't breathe.
Jess was too fast, too alert to die by car, or bus, or truck.
Cancer threatened my parents.
They were in remission.
Fear of myself buried those fears, and when I was even luckier, I could glue myself to comrades, work, prime time TV soaps and mystery novels. Sleep.
Fear of losing my anchors surfaced with increasing frequency whenever I was alone, each time more difficult to divert than the last, raising the intensity of my anxiety, a war I now fought daily, like Jess. She was the General — I had yet to get out of boot camp.
My workload wasn't greater than before (I checked it against last year's schedule), but it took more out of me. By evening I was too tired to meet anyone anywhere but in my own living room. And soon, my bedroom; I reclined against pillows and my mattress while my friends sat in the white cushioned armchair in the corner between my dresser and the western wall. A couple of days a week, Jess stopped by after work for at least one wine, sometimes pizza. Jake brought dinner over once or twice a week. Most work days, Susan drove us to restaurants, getting away from our usual lunch table of colleagues in the company cafeteria, who knew nothing about my change of mind.
I didn't feel sick. Just tired.
"Anything would pale compared to mania," Jess said. "Don't push. You’re on your way out of this."
"It must be the flu."
"After all this time?"
Fatigue weighted me; nothing interested me, people annoyed me.
Yet there was no slack in the surge of my passion for Jake.
Jake went to Florida for ten days over Thanksgiving.
Negative thoughts purchased greater segments of time, crowding me when alone, distracting me when I was with others. Tonight I took my temperature. How could it be normal?
I took my temperature the next day, and then every day after work. I seemed to have every unpleasant symptom of fevers, everything but anything above ninety-eight point six.
My father's father had a morning ritual that had included a thermometer. Standing in his bathroom, his undershirt tucked into his trousers held in place by suspenders, he’d eye himself in the mirror, the thermometer jutting out of his mouth like one of his pipes or cigars. When we kids glimpsed this practice, we’d run off to the card room and play with the word hypochondriac, the fun of enunciating this overheard, indecipherable term delighting us again and again.
Every day when I got home after work, I popped in the thermometer, turned on the electric blanket, undressed, and read the mercury level before slipping into a hot foamy bath. No temperature tonight, either. I wished I had a good high fever.
One day I stopped at the Fudge Pot a few doors down the block from the lot where I parked my car. I indulged in this luxury again a few days later, adopting the practice once or twice a week, then three and more times. I bought a pound of milk chocolate fudge on Fridays; I wouldn’t have to leave home on the weekend. Switch to popcorn, Jess always said, but I craved sugar, not salt.
An image of my brain oozed into my consciousness, overwhelming me with its invasive power, its shape alien, ropy and round in sick-gray. My enemy crouched right behind my eyes.
After Jake returned, I rarely had the heart to see him, or whatever it was I needed that would make me want him again, have the energy again to want much of anything, other than sleep.
I bought extended wear contact lenses. Life was easier without waking to myopic distortions that mirrored internal matters, which aroused anxiety the minute I opened my eyes.
The downside of twenty-twenty vision hurt every time I unexpectedly saw myself in a mirror. How could I still look like me?
At the end of January, Watcher, the puppy my sister Maggie had found for me, would be old enough to leave his mother.
I'd be thirty-nine in January.
Forty was next. Forty. The decade of establishment. Well. I certainly had established myself as a mad spinster, neither label one I ever had expected to wear. When I mentioned this thought to Jess, she said it was time to expect the unexpected.
Forty was too young to start the rest of life in mania or depression, lugging around a body that moved like sludge.
I needed Watcher now.

*******************************************************************
January 7, 1982

SUGAR. NO, SALT.
NO.
SUGAR.







CHAPTER SIXTEEN










Jess phoned one evening heading into Christmas week. "What are you up to?"
"Hunting skulls and crossbones under the sink."
"Why?" she snapped.
"Watcher."
"You're not contemplating ingesting any of them, are you? Because if you are, remember, you canNOT kill your parents' child."
"Jess — I need to know there's a way out of this . . . "
"You'll get out! It'll take time, though. You've a chemical imbalance that chemistry needs time to treat. Sit tight."
"Easy for you to say."
"I've been in the shoes you've been wearing lately, and you are in a vicious cycle right now. But: This too, my dear, shall end. Have you imbibed your day's quota?"
"No . . . "
"Then take two wines and call me in the morning. And call if you want to talk later."
Jess never let me forget for long that the worst was over, and that I was in good company: Churchill, van Gogh, Hemingway.
Near the end of February, before she could get to Hemingway again, I realized that I hadn’t written in my journal about my unexpected stay in Florida, not to mention its cause. There was no mention of my unexpected employer I thought I was working for, a character I usually shelved with Robin Hood, Peter Pan and Santa Claus. I’d been devoted to avoiding that memory. Maybe it was time to face it.
I, with my private school educations and life in big cities, got into awful trouble. There had to be other people as ignorant as I was — they could profit from my mistakes.
Losing your mind wasn’t even for enemies. If I wrote a book about my experiences with mania and depression, others might get help before madness could take over and launch them into unwitting self-destruction.
If, after reading my book, even one person got treatment before falling out of reality, my ignorance would be worth it. Excitement buoyed me for the first time in, I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d felt like this.
When I called Jess to tell her about my new brainchild, she said my story was “important” and that it needed to be told. She offered to edit it, knowing of course that the only grammar I ever learned came from my two years of Latin. And in our copy writing profession, one rarely wrote complete sentences for print ads.
Writing was Jessie’s art, short stories that were evocative portraits of interesting people. I could hope to be half as good a prose writer as she was. However, I doubted I’d ever be able to eat Brussel sprouts or exercise regularly, as she also did.
The next day, I left work at five and was home in thirty minutes. I set up the typewriter at the dining room table and sat in the chair in front of it. I couldn't think of a way to start so I described the day. My sentences charted the same lifeless line my paintings had taken in 1978, the year I also gave up eligible men. A few hours later, I tried again. Nothing came out from within. I didn't have the heart to try again.
Writing could carry me away again. I returned the typewriter to the closet, disappointed but not devastated. Maybe I would try again.
I stayed at work until Don left at six, seven, unwilling to face myself any sooner than necessary. It was astonishing to realize I’d become grateful for the predictability of my work, the very reason I’d been itching to find something else last year, just before I went around the bend the wrong way.
Jess urged me to join a group of people who had manic-depression. They met Tuesday evenings in an Evanston coffee shop at least thirty minutes away. I had as much in common with them as I had with Churchill, van Gogh and Hemingway. No. I was better off at home, guarding my mind in private in the only place I could completely relax.
Dynasty, Perry Mason and movies absorbed me. Jess wouldn’t let a TV in her house. But she met friends every night for drinks and dinner. I needed time to myself a few days a week — more so when I could paint, never every night. By four in the afternoon, I couldn’t wait to get into bed and turn on TV, preferring my fiction in “living color” as opposed to the black-and-white printed page, or the alcoholic embellishments that some of the people I knew insisted on making, which became more and more tedious as evenings stretched long into nights and bar tabs kept escalating.
TV stories provided “real” reasons for fear and tears. I played solitaire during commercials, or read my latest paperback mystery, the medley of these occupations walling off my recent history, my latest crisis, the most terrifying crisis in my existence.
How could I ever again trust that part of me that once berthed my heart and soul, the spirit of my creativity? The essence of what once was me?
* * *
I tried to write again. Words refused to march.
Jess said I couldn't kill my parents' child. A part of me wanted Jess to move in with me, but then I’d have to give up Jake.
I left home only for work, after which I stopped for groceries as infrequently as possible. Strangers crowded, jostled; rolling carts menaced from every direction; stacked-shelves seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. Only at home could I relax, and then only once in bed with music, fiction and Valium. Sleep at last.
Watcher was more trap than blessing. And he wouldn't know normal from abnormal.
I was relieved when Maggie said I was right not to take the puppy, that dogs shouldn't live with anyone who didn’t have the energy to properly care for them.
For something to say that he might relate to, I told Geltzer I wasn’t getting a dog because I wanted a live-in lover.
"That's no problem," he replied, his pleasure pompous. "See me once a week and you'll have your wish by spring."
"You keep a supply of possibilities in the closet?"
He drew toward him his appointment book and leafed through it, slowly scanning each page.
"If you're looking for a weekly slot for me, forget it. I need a lover now, not — “
"I have an opening — "
"Forget it." I swallowed unkind epithets. "And rather than fantasize, shouldn't we be talking about the real reason I'm here? Medication, doctor, remember? And just how is the lithium doing?"
"Fine," he answered crisply.
"And the Thorazine?"
"You're still on that? You can stop it now."
How dare he in his pasty pomposity not know that I was still on Thorazine! I was livid. "And you're absolutely positive you don't want me to drop lithium?"
"You'll never go off that," he answered, nodding his head with satisfaction.
"Never?"
"The objective of lithium is to prevent another psychotic episode."
"Then how will I know when the disorder ends and I begin?"
"You won't."
"But . . . " I looked at his impassive face and suppressed the urge to punch him, to kick him hard enough to recreate the level of hurting now living in me. "I will never be psychotic again — with or without lithium. I must get off it."
"Come once a week," he intoned.
I left while he was still looking at his watch. What an unmitigated ass. As long as brain chemicals tipped my balance, there was no way I could live with anyone. Why didn't he say that? No. Geltzer wasn't the answer. Neither was a roommate.
That night, failure mired me in hopelessness, until I realized that my desire for Watcher had initiated a relationship with Maggie. We’d begun taking turns phoning each other weekly, which, happily, pleased our parents. Crediting full-blown mania for mending that fence made me feel better.
“You’ll never get off lithium.” Hurry, Valium, get me out of here.
* * *
Winter's hand was grim, its day like dusk. The light was always dim however bright the lamp, shadows like ugly stains wherever I looked.
Grime everywhere. Garbage reeking and infested.
I'm too tired, I'd say to invitations from friends; just tired, I'd tell those who questioned my health. Fatigue was dazing. But it still lifted when I was with Jake.
Jake, work, Jess, Susan and Don created the only reality I could face in concentrated doses.
At some point I stopped fighting for creative license. Rewrites were a challenge I could conquer. But every project triggered self-doubt. "I can’t trust what I write anymore," I told Susan.
She said, “Give it to me before you give it to Don.”
“As if you don’t have enough to do already.”
Susan was more nourishing than my daily grilled Swiss cheese and bacon sandwich. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had the stomach for burgers and salads.
One noon Susan said, "My colleagues are talking about how quiet you are these days." The green of her eyes gleamed with fun when she added, "Phil asked if you were looking for another job."
Jess still came over after work several times a week, whether or not she was invited. She knew well that madding crowds of fear needed sanctuary. She knew mental treason; she knew its horror. Jess helped me face my aberration, a necessity for maintenance no less important than sharing the awful truth about terror and confusion.
And still I dreaded her arrival one bitter evening, wanting to doze in the electric heat of my blanket. I let her in, gave her a glass of wine and went back to bed. As soon as she settled into the white chair across the room, I began to fear her departure.
"Have you thought about the fact we're closer now?" she asked.
I pulled the blankets to my chin and said, "No, but we phone each other several times a day now. You never used to drop in on me, either."
"That's how we're closer, but not why," she responded quietly from the gloom in her corner.
I sat up and shuffled a deck of cards, the slapping burr the only sound in the room; I laid out seven on my comforter before speaking. "Contact has had a new calling since my mind did a one-eighty."
Her laughter wasn’t free and lilting, nor was it contagious, as it usually was.
I whispered, "There isn't a piece of me that isn't quicksand. Knowing this infects me with fear."
"Don't think about it then." Her voice compelled me to meet her eyes. "The worst was psychosis, and you've conquered that. And it may not feel like it, but you're healing, you're going through the cycles . . . And that's normal! Understand?" Those blue crystal eyes of hers compelled me to accept her view.
"Normal if you have a case of manic-depression, you mean." A grin curved my lips and then I felt it inside me, tunneling for laughter.
"Unfortunately for you, it looks like it's all downhill for a while. You've entered depression, I'd say.” Jess paused a moment before turning her eyes back to mine, then said, “What does Geltzer say?"
"Do you really think that's it? If I were supposed to feel like this, I'd feel better about it."
She smiled but quickly repeated, "What does Geltzer say?"
"I was in better shape the last time I saw him."
"Listen, Obletzkrieg, why not see him more frequently while you change gears?"
"No way."
"Depression's a logical explanation for the way you're feeling, and you're exhibiting some of the symptoms — "
"How shrinkish of you." I appraised the intensity of her blue gaze. And then I was crying, my sobs silencing her, my tears collecting on the cards. "I cry for no reason," I whispered, unable to meet her eyes. "I cry at work and hide in the bathroom; I cry in the car coming home; I cry when I get here."
"Another classic sign! Call Geltzer. Don't wait for the next session. Call him. He'll know what to do," she said urgently.
"Oh, Jessie." Tears tracked my helplessness.
"Geltzer'll treat the depression. Call him. There are drugs you can take."
“I'm okay with you, and Susan, and Jake, not that great with family."
"To quote Breaking Through to Happiness, a discourse from a sublime state of mind I might add, friends are your family, 'related by blood and not.'" The wit's gleam in her eyes reminded me of my father.
I grinned back and said, "True . . . true. But with the meter running, there's no time for negatives that my long distance family cannot do anything about, nor hear without additional stress. Besides which, only you understand that my fears are rational — " I laughed when I realized what I’d said, enjoying the spirit of understanding. My voice lightened when I added, "Sleeping's best, no dreams, no recall. And therefore, Professor, no rub."
"There is merit in your worship of oblivion — but only to a point, my friend. You have to stay awake for the positives in life." Her tone matched mine, but her eyes and cheeks darkened.
"What positives? I can't trust my mind, let alone control it."
"It's an elite club. Very few members. Rather a rough initiation, though. And I must say, yours was particularly harsh."
More tissues dripped with my tears. "I don’t think I can live like this much longer."
"But you are living with it. And you're working. You're brave — I know how impossible it can be to be alone."
I'd known that about Jess, and been appalled by it. That fact now was a rock to hang on to in the avalanche of my thoughts, relieving the strain of solitary confinement.
"But you," she said, riveting my attention on her. She paused, leaned forward, lit a cigarette and pointed it at me like an accusation, or a teacher underlining a fact, and said, "You must get out and do things. You have to be with people. The Group gathers this Friday at La Bastille. You're coming."
"Sitting at a table, not to mention joining repartee, is beyond me, Jess. I need my bed, the comfort of my home — I have to be as comfortable as I can be to, to . . . "
"You need to engage different and more positive associations. Come with us and get away from yourself for awhile. I'll be here at six, be ready."
"Maybe. I'm just so tired . . . "
"Hiding does nothing for depression," she said firmly.
"Does it ever get easier?" I turned up a card.
"It becomes familiar, and you know what that breeds."
"Give me contempt over fear any day." My attempted humor was a miserable failure, braking my laughter after its first forced note. “Anything’s better than fear.”
She looked at me intently, drew on her cigarette, averted her gaze, exhaled. "I don't know if it's possible to get used to it, but you will learn to live with it."
"Will that take much longer?" I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear her answer.
"Depends. It hasn't been that long since your return to reality. And that's the fact to hang on to, Patricia." She lifted a cigarette to her lips and lit it from the one she’d been smoking. "Maybe your tears are inspired by grief, not disorder." She shook her head then grinned at me. "But you've come a long way — be proud of your progress!"
"There's no glory in pride. Nor contempt. No glory at all. On the other hand, hell hath no greater glory than a full-blown manic episode!" My escaping laughter was spontaneous, a state of being I thought I’d lost. But I felt like me when with my loves, their interactions providing me with cells of positive activity, people who reminded me of who I was once and would be again.
"Okay, Shakespeare, so what are you doing for act two? Never mind, don't answer that, but promise you'll call Geltzer."
"Jess, why didn't I think of him!"
"Doesn't say much for him," came her dry reply.
The next morning, I called him. He upped the lithium from five pills a day to six. My tears stopped within the week.



************************************************************************************
eternity



“YOU’LL NEVER GET OFF LITHIUM.”







CHAPTER SEVENTEEN










Jess insisted that I was no longer vulnerable to madness, that I was surrounded by people who loved me, that I was under the care of a top specialist who Stan had recommended. She'd follow these blessings with the fact I was lucky to have parental love and backup, not to mention a lover I could trust. In closing, she'd say I was financially secure, frosting the cake of my security in her estimation. None of these blessings stayed long in my mind; none of them registered in my heart.
Jess stopped pressing me to meet The Group, and the manic-depressive group, though she still dropped by several nights a week. On Saturdays, we met at Nookies for brunch before braving Treasure Island for groceries, a chore I no longer could manage alone, the store too crowded, too loud, too confusing.
Depression took me deeper. That had to be the cause of the weight I now carted, invisible, unweighable, footsteps dragging, head bowed, shoulders listing forward and down — I'd seen myself in too many store windows.
I no longer cared what I looked like. I cared too much. I couldn't confront my reflection, me, but not me.
Only at work or with Jess, Susan and Jake could my cold narrow shaft open and warm, reminding me of life past and to come.
When people called during prime time TV, they recruited reality, which enraged me, icing my warning that I'd be unavailable between seven and ten, for the duration.
Need for sugar seemed to increase in direct line with my decreasing interest in life. Fiction, pizza, fudge and slice-and-bake chocolate chip cookies filled me, a stuporous sating.
The horror of mental masturbation by a hand other than my own was rape. Jess said there was no easy recovery from rape, and that lithium was like mace.
I was cold all the time, even in sweaters under the heat of my electric blanket.
I slept more, rarely dressing on weekends. I ordered pizza; Sandburg Market delivered wine, cigarettes, eggs and bread.
The only kind of writing I could manage was copy to sell beauty products. Perhaps I didn't want to see the inside of my mind.
Sometimes Jake warmed my desolation, discarding it with his transitory insistent presence. Last night he groaned about my room crammed with cards, books, hastily shed clothes, and my latest bible, the TV Guide.
"How do you find anything in this mess?" he cried one night, astonishment widening his eyes. He bent to pick up a dress, shove a hanger in it, stuff it in the closet.
I threw a sweater at him, laughing as I let go and collapsed on the bed. I felt light and free, high on the spur of passion.
He ducked the sweater and came into my arms and we tussled like kids. And then our play was carnal and our clothes joined others on the floor.
Every hold on my feelings released, pleasure ruling again, giving life to my body and soul, giving me glory.
He cried out; he slumped over me slowly, covering me with his length. He held me. With Jake I was alive, the me I was before my brain chemicals lost their balance. "I'm not like this when I'm not with you," I murmured.
"I should hope not!" He moved us on our sides and enveloped me in his arms. "What we give each other can't be duplicated. You know that," he said, pulling back to look into my eyes, certifying his claim with a kiss.
It felt so good to seem sane, I didn’t try to explain that he gave me energy and pleasure, two commodities no longer available to me without him.
When he left, sleep took me, soundless and still, until the alarm went off. I forced myself out of bed. In the closet, I groped for something to wear. Something black or brown or gray. Soothing, not shrill, like colors.
Five days a week for three years, I'd driven west on North Avenue, never noticing pedestrians. Until this morning. My heart twisted at the sight of a hatted bag lady swaddled in layers of rags lurching down the sidewalk. She was bent over torn worn-thin shopping bags gripped in raw red hands, her step wavering until her next thrust forward. A gnarled man clothed in washed-lost colors mended with staggered bright stitches shuffled along with a step-on-a-crack-break-your-mother's-back fixity.
The news on the radio raged with threatening realities, the Cold War of nations flaunting opposing beliefs no less alarming than those within me. I shut out the external world. I dared not venture into internal points of view without Jess in the flesh sharing the corridor.
I was trapped inside depression. There was no way out. No way out.
I could not let myself think about it.
I took the car into fourth gear in a rush to pass the cars ahead, calculating distances with utter concentration. I already was crashing in an accident of nature.
* * *
"You're going out tonight," Jess announced in a surprise attack on my home after work.
“No. I can't. I'm too tired, my hair's filthy — I — "
"Come on, once more before the road — I leave for Mexico the end of next week. "
"I'm a mess."
"Make-up, a hair brush, a bright something from the closet and, voila!" She pushed me toward the bathroom before I could object, hovering over me, directing applications of eyeliner and blush.
You're getting rich on good deeds, I silently accused her, hating her for dragging me out, for going off to Mexico, for denying me the strength of her sanity, the wizardry of her wit. How would I get through three months without her . . . I brushed my teeth, tormented my hair. She handed me a vermillion dress. Vermillion, shade of fresh blood, like the kind that launched the hysterectomy followed by peritonitis — followed by the messiah of my psychotic break. Chills crawled across my body, fear worming its way through me. My cheeks grew hot, not as bright as the dress, brighter than the tint of my blush.
I exchanged the offending garment for a brown turtleneck sweater-dress. Madness was nothing like I'd assumed it would be; nor was it now a subject for humor, nor a source of labels to hang on friends.
The border of sanity I now faced had become invisible. Jess knew it; she crossed the line every time she lost her mind to panic.
"Ready? The Pump Room awaits us," she declared when I emerged from my room.
I buried my lips under color and followed her.
She was breathing proof that panic could be conquered if not cured, though our hope for that event was devout. Yet in our war against anxiety, Jess seemed more threatened by psychiatry than panic. I was afraid that her mastery of “neurotic hysteria” lay in medical hands. Down deep, beneath the memory of the shrink who had attempted to seduce her, I thought she knew it too. I told her often that she was lucky Stan was a psychiatrist, that the bed was better than no couch at all. Worry about her occupied much of my time. Her panic attacks had lessened once Stan entered her life, but when they hit her now, they seemed more and more vicious.
Stan was now part of her problem. Not long ago, he'd informed her that marriage was impossible. She wasn't the right religion. My heart curled away from the scars of my heartbreak when she'd confided his rejection.
We wondered if Stan would change his mind after being without her for three months.
How could she leave now?
She had to go, for her soul, for her heart.
Unlike Jess, I didn't dare to be on foreign ground alone.
We walked to the corner. "There's one," I cried, stepping from the curb, hailing a taxi.
Jess was more open to certain aspects of life than I was, like traveling alone, like rarely offending people with her offenses. When she did, and if she cared, she'd easily woo them back into her court. How dare she leave for Mexico next week. She knew what it was like not to own her own mind.
"You'll probably cycle out of this phase before I get home," she said.
"You really believe that?"
"You could — your mania took about three months, give or take."
Love came into me, softening, soothing, securing. Saddening. "Oh Jessie, I don't know how you do it, but I feel so much better . . . I . . . "
"I'm going to miss you, too, Pal-o-mine-o, but we'll write, letters are better than phones, and I'll send you my number, you can call anytime." She drew in breath and her words slowed, and became emphatic and intense: "Obletzkrieg, the best is yet to come, you're doing fine, you're having a nasty trip, but you're getting closer to home every day. Understand?" She gripped my shoulder until I nodded.
As the cab slowed for a red light a block from the Pump Room, I grabbed her hand. "I’m so sorry I haven't been much of a friend — we rarely talk about your conflicts. I haven't even asked for the latest on Stan."
"Brain chemical imbalance has a way of consuming attention," she said lightly.
"Consuming, devouring, destroying — mind-numbing — "
"Indeed it is, but we're about to see some sights, meet some people, have a little fun — "
"Amnesia right now would be perfect."
She gently socked my arm; the taxi pulled up to the Ambassador East Hotel.
We circled the bar thronged three deep; the third tour nabbed a table under autographed celebrity photos in nearly touching black frames; to the right and down two steps was the dining room, a white linen contrast to the polished ebony bar and tables.
The round black table reflected a cut-glass ashtray and a small brass candlestick lamp, a picture to paint someday, some way.
"Hors d'oeuvres," Jess declared, standing, leaving no room for argument.
I trailed her through the chatting, laughing, mingling crowd, cursing her every step on the way to the alcove off the bar. I took two squares of pizza, a sizeable stash of cheese, a modicum of vegetables and dip.
As I turned to return to the table, a russet-haired male flashing two diamond rings and multiple gold chains at neck and wrists fingered his walrus mustache and said, "What do you do?" He also had a gold-toothed grin.
"I'm writing the bible that will save the world," I answered, projecting humble sincerity.
"What?"
I repeated myself.
"Isn't that a bit presumptuous?" His raised eyebrow may have meant to ridicule, but it made him looked ridiculous.
"Not at all." I widened my eyes, aiming for innocence. "The messiah is dictating it to me."
"The . . . Messiah?" He seemed torn between the desire to laugh and a need to flee.
"Haven't you heard of him?" I bit into a celery stalk.
"You're putting me on — either that, or you're some kind of nut."
"Which?"
"I don't want to know." He spun away from me.
Behind me came a burst of laughter. Still laughing, Jessie said, "He'll be talking about you for days!"
When we settled back at the table, she wet her lips and grinned. "You shucked him with a masterpiece maneuver."
I was suddenly pleased with myself, all of a sudden feeling cocky. "I'm polling the masses for receptivity to madness. He wasn't receptive, was he?"
"For the most part," she began in her lecturing voice, "the masses aren't ready for madness. Most people can't cope with it."
"Talking about it helps me cope," I said, scorched by the anger suddenly raging through me, fingernails gouging my palms. "And I'd rather know at the outset if madness is acceptable . . . I also enjoyed that exchange."
"Let strangers get to know you before springing your messiah on them. It'll cut losses, not that the mustache was a keeper."
"You mean I could lose Mr. Right — "
"Stitches in time."
"Okay, okay, I've learned my lesson — I won't introduce my messiah to appealing men."
"Madness is a minority problem best dealt with by the minority," she insisted, disapproval softening in her following question: "Do you see what I mean?"
"My messiah was right. People need to be judged on their talents and spirit — not on parentage, privilege, race, religion, or any stereotype as defined by tunnel vision of one sort or another — "
"People fear what they’ve been programmed to think."
"Ignorance is a dirty diaper. Madness gave me that insight, too. Unfortunately, it's obvious that humane thinking isn't universally instinctive — Oh, Jess, I miss that charmed circle I lived in with my messiah, but I, I can't bear not knowing what's next."
"You're seeing a specialist in manic-depression, so you're medically covered, and you've got people who love you on call — "
"You're a few blocks away — "
"You don't really need me — you are on the way out. You are almost home. The worst is over. You just need to wait it out. You're okay — "
"How can mental illness be condemned any more than cancer or black hair?"
"I quite agree, but life doesn't operate that way, the mustache being a perfect example — "
"Not, unfortunately, a member of a vanishing breed, though worthy of a worst-case study. At least I had some fun digging a little humor out of his horror."
When she said my name, her tone was a warning, and a run into laughter.








******************************************************************************
Journal Entry After the Fall ‘82



NO PIECE OF MIND BRINGS PEACE TO ME

I DROWN FROM UP

TO

DOWN

NO SWITCH TO SWITCH ON, SWITCH OFF.















CHAPTER EIGHTEEN










D'Angelo's private room was crowded with well-wishers at Jessie's bon voyage party. I felt conspicuous in my lack of gaiety, nursing a white wine over ice, and a growing sense of isolation. An occasional tear blurred my vision again and again.
Jess joined me and slung an arm around my shoulders. "Cheers! It's not every day I leave for Mexico to write for three months."
I forced a smile, raised my glass. "To a great trip," I said, fighting for control. Three months without her loomed in the darkness ahead.
Sunk in feelings of abandonment, I left her and wandered from dining room to bar and back in an aimless search for relief.
I had nothing to say, nothing to offer. And no one approached me. No one. I'd met nearly everyone here over the last few years, yet none even said hello. But then, my eyes were glued to the floor and I couldn't tell who was who from shoes.
I found an oxblood leather wingchair in a corner of the lounge and collapsed into it, balancing my drink on its carved wooden armrest, a retreat worth gratitude.
"Patricia?"
I opened my eyes, looked up. Stan Goodman peered at me kindly. "Hi." Relief softened my tone. Other than Jess, he was the only person at the party I could feel comfortable with. "Did I ever thank you for telling Jessie I was nuts?"
"A slightly more critical case of craziness than the rest of us experience," he suggested, his grin lighting the sweetness in his eyes, pulling a smile from me. "I'm sorry you've swung in the opposite direction. Rough territory." He shook his head, his eyes reflecting sympathy behind tortoiseshell glasses.
"'The mountain's higghhh, but the valley's so loowww,'" I sang softly, feeling better when the smile returned to his face. "It's rough out there period. And what's one more disorder? I could get away with murder now!"
"You'd be put away for that!"
"Ah yes, but love's my mode, not hate, a different kind of killer for me."
"Not just you, kid." He pouched his lips, the protruding lower one pushing the upper toward his nose, a wry commentary that reminded me of the way my father would mobilize such a statement of fact.
"I'm lucky lithium works for me . . . " But I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. I couldn't silence the static that lithium raised in my ears. I couldn't rise above despair. I couldn’t stop fear without pills.
"Patricia . . . "
I couldn't shake the alarm that had snared my mood. I looked up at him, then away and sipped my wine.
"How are you really doing?"
His care drove tears back into my eyes. "Don't let me spoil Jessie's party."
"You're not in a bed of roses, but you're thriving like a hot house flower . . . Professionally speaking, you're doing a terrific job of handling a rotten deal." He was emphatic.
My spine stiffened; my tears stopped. "That means a lot coming from you. I better repair to the ladies room, and repair." I stood and kissed his cheek before seeking solitude.
Returning to the party, I was shocked by the raucous sound of intoxication that struck me as I entered the bar. I longed for my bed and finally found Jess in the middle of a group, laughing and gesturing, eyes bright, cheeks flushed.
"I've come to say good-bye," I whispered in her ear.
"It's not even eight o'clock! Get another drink and come talk to Stan." She pushed me toward the bar.
"We talked. Jessie, I've got to go home, I'm exhausted. I can't think straight anymore. Figuratively as well as literally. Have a ball tonight, a good flight tomorrow, and may the muse be with you day and night." I hugged her, wetting her hair in another spate of tears. "I love you, buddy. Write right, and write!"
* * *
I dreaded Tuesday's session with Geltzer and dragged myself to his office ten minutes late.
"Sorry," I said and dropped into the chair furthest from his desk.
"It's your time," he answered in that infuriating monotone. "How have you been?" He reached for a glass snail paperweight and cupped his hand over it.
"The same," I answered in a tone influenced by his.
He unveiled the snail and leaned forward, took a pen from a cup and raised it to the line cut between his mouth and nose, eyeing me with cold scrutiny.
I met his gaze and said, "Heinrich Heine knew: 'The worst poison: to despair of one's own power.'" I so rarely had a chance to quote one of Jessie's favorites, that pleasure filled me for a moment before fleeing.
"So, you're familiar with Heine," he stated, his voice animated at last. He steepled his fingers. "Have you forgotten that your brain is still struggling for balance?"
"I live with it," I snapped. I swallowed. "Jess left. For three months."
"And that upsets you?"
"She's planned this trip for years . . . " I gripped the arms of the chair, resisting the urge to flee. "I'm so alone without her," I whimpered, hating my display of weakness.
"And she is your only friend?" His chair creaked when he leaned back. He wafted the pen like a conductor's wand.
"She's the only one who understands how I feel . . . "
"So. You'll sit home for the next three months and feel sorry for yourself?"
"Work takes all the energy I have and I, I can't be sure what I'll do or say when I'm with others . . . I'm not afraid of myself when I'm with Jess. She's the only one who knows what it's like, don't you understand that?" I was suddenly furious and anger felt good: I understood the emotion and its source.
"I've studied and worked with manic-depression for years. Talk to me while your friend is away. Come once a week."
Nausea huddled me over my stomach. "I don't need psychotherapy, just drug monitoring."
"You overestimate yourself." He was a cold fish, a medical examiner without heart, without soul. There was nothing caring in his manner, no warmth. I was a disorder to him, a nonentity, a checkbook check.
He placed a box of tissues at the front of his desk. As I used my hands to wipe away my tears, a feeling of calm returned; I inhaled and exhaled slowly, deliberately.
"If you were to see me once — "
"Why?" I blazed. "So you can sit there and dictate the feelings I'm supposed to have? So you can install a lover in my home?"
"You need me," he said, peering over his glasses, dipping his head to do so. Two plump rolls of flesh appeared to embrace his chin.
If he'd shown one iota of compassion . . . "I'll stick to once a month."
His palm swallowed the glass snail paperweight. He cleared his throat as if to sharpen a point. "Fifty minutes a month can't help you." He hefted the snail in his palm as if to weigh his last statement.
"Fifty minutes a week would dig me into a deeper level of this hell." I glared at his meticulous person and restrained my desire to smash his snail.
His hand stopped toying with the paperweight. He returned my gaze, his eyes cold behind his glasses. "You can't know that until you try it. So. When will you start coming weekly?"
"As soon as I get off lithium."
* * *
The lights went out late Sunday afternoon. Nothing electric worked. I grabbed a flashlight and as I started for the basement, the phone rang. Power failure, my downstairs neighbor said. Blackout as far as he could see. He brought a bottle of wine upstairs and we built a bright hot fire. He left around seven.
I remained huddled before dwindling flames in the ever-growing colder living room. Finally I went to bed, unable to read my watch in the pitch of darkness. I had to get up and hunt down every blanket in the house, adding my fur coat and parka to the pile. I crawled back in and shivered beneath them, hugging my knees for warmth.
An urban failure as complete as my own.
Lucky Jess to miss this ice spitting night without heat, without light.
I drowsed, perhaps I slept.
A vicious clamp of nausea aroused me. I was disoriented in the dense blackness of this night without power. I struggled to untangle my limbs from the layers that covered me, staring into shapeless darkness, pricks of colored lights bouncing in front of my eyes. It's so cold, I cried aloud, stumbling, hands outstretched, searching for the bathroom door, the toilet. My hand touched the sink and before I could secure a position, my stomach heaved. Again. Again. And again.
I was on my knees, clutching icy porcelain, freezing and impossibly wretched. I couldn’t believe my stomach still had contents to lose.
The night would never end. I’d be frozen, still gripping the bowl, curled around its stone-cold base.
Lights blared, the furnace fan kicked in. I could see my watch: it was seven-twenty.
It was over.
Later I learned it had been the coldest night in the history of Chicago.
Eighty below zero windchill, a power failure, the stomach flu — one hell of a trinity, I wrote Jess. And I said I knew it was always darkest before it turned to black, but that black had so many shades, and that they kept getting deeper and deeper.
* * *
The void was all surrounding now. Nothing could fill it. I hated being awake –- oblivion was salvation.
I still dreaded that time between lights out and sleep, my heavied limbs sinking in the giving of my mattress, thoughts coming out of the dark, abortions without anesthetic.
There was no place in my mind for comfort, no place for peace. Sometimes turning up the volume of classical music opened a path to unconsciousness, if the composer were Bach, Beethoven, Mozart or Mendelssohn. Anxiety ceased in the strains of those heart and soul masters conducted by Valium, and of course, lithium.
Valium saved me from sleepless nights, which increased my lack of control, the most awful of all the anxieties that plagued me. Nothing was secure, not even work.
The new copywriter wanted my job. She wrote memos to Don, citing me for imagined wrongs. The intensity of her anger disturbed me. I could feel myself being sucked in, blood twisting through tensing sinews, hot fists gripping my mind. I was the boss, I had to keep control, but in her arrangement I felt helpless. Holding the edge of my desk I'd ask her to leave and come back later. That enraged her further, attracting Don's attention. The three of us met in his office now, that worry no longer front line. But I never knew when she would blow, nor was she ever clear on the details of what might set her off. I was not only on guard against myself, I was now on guard at work, the one place in which I'd believed I was safe.
I hated having to keep a "blue book" on her for thirty days, building a case for dismissal to present to Personnel. Luckily, she didn't respond to warnings –- she'd always be a knife at my back.
Her termination took place in Don's office with the head of Personnel, Don and me. It was a shocking severance. I couldn't believe the violence that shook her voice, vicious words at a decibel rarely heard indoors, certainly not at corporate headquarters.
There was freedom at work again, there was security. I'd waged war and won.
I wrote Jess a thousand letters detailing the anxiety I felt over being under fire, and in the writing, I found relief, enabling me to win. Jess was an enabler of the most positive kind, even in absence. When I wrote her, I almost could hear her responses, finding humor, sharing horror, encouraging and supportive. I sent few of the letters I wrote her; her replies of course came way after the facts. It was the act of writing her that helped me, releasing information to a comrade at arms now beyond arms length.
I wrote to Jess instead of in my journal, my subjects dominated by the lives of my parents; some paragraphs reached her. Cancer didn't show up in their last CAT scans.
With my luck, I'd live to a hundred. I didn't share that idea even with Jess.
* * *
February was pushing its limits. Below zero temperatures were expected to continue. Frozen air seared lungs; it frosted glasses and windshields. Car locks froze and fingers numbed trying to defrost them.
Every time the battery rolled over and ignition caught, choked, steadied, relief uncoiled my muscles. I wouldn't be alone that day.
About a mile from shore, past the Crib, and as far out as the eye could see, Lake Michigan wore a rough coat of ice that peaked toward the beach as if half-formed waves, frozen solid, waited for spring to finish their roll.
March was a distant mirage. Jess would never return. I missed her more than I'd believed possible.
Death drew me closer. I stared into its face with longing. Pills were the best way out. I called my internist, but he wouldn't prescribe anything stronger than Valium. I didn't really plan to die — I couldn't kill my parents' child, as Jess so often reminded me, her words a revolving order in memory. But a cache of sleeping pills would give me a semblance of control over life.
Jessie's spirit penetrated my cell with postcards, momentary pardons. But without her presence to weigh imbalance, I teetered in the shallows of superficialities, clinging to prime time TV , Jake, and Susan at work.
My parents continued to call three times a week or more, a support system devised by disorder. Conversations with Michael and Cindy also had increased. And the weekly contact with Maggie added another thread of sustainment.
It was easier to project a happier existence under the protection of long distance. And the interaction helped, it made me feel less cut off from life outside my mind.
For the first time in my life, I felt more secure in the surrounds of my profession than within the walls of my persona.
I was grateful that my boss Don was a man of compassion who also had a terrific sense of humor. I sorely had missed his humor last fall during my first two weeks on the job after my stay in Florida. He’d been cool, aloof, and distanced by more than his desk when he'd called me into his office my first day back at work. He’d closed the door behind me and said he'd had to “go to bat” for me to put me on disability insurance, that management had been skeptical because I'd gone to Florida.
After thanking him, I said, "What a shame they think I should have spent the worst time in my life in a hospital, as if my parents and the psychiatrist have no credibility." I tried not to let him see how upset I was and, as I lit a cigarette, he said he hoped I was fine now. I assured him I was, and we tackled business matters, his manner impersonal, and unfriendly, I thought.
I was grateful when his manner warmed fourteen days later. My work must have reassured him that, no matter what had been wrong, I was still reliable, my work still acceptable. When he started teasing me in his old familiar, comfortable way again, another bolt slipped home in the construction of my stability.
However, even now I still handed my copy to Susan before giving it to Don. I had to make sure that my mental condition hadn't flawed my professional skills. Meeting Susan had been another lucky break.
Luck. Maybe the good luck still outweighed the bad.
I thought often about Anne Frank. How could I even think I was having a hard time? But she'd had hope of escape, hadn't she? Hadn't she?


******************************************************
Journal Too Late


No way out. No way out.

SUICIDE.

I cannot kill my parents' child.








SUICIDE.


No way out.


No way out.

















CHAPTER NINETEEN








Roiling black thunderheads and slashing rain rode the late-March night that Jess came home. On the way to the airport, my hands clenched the steering wheel white-knuckled and cold, contrast to the hot racing beat of my heart. Tail lights hovered ahead, twin red blurs, distance flattened by the downpour. High winds drove the car into wrong lanes — I couldn't even control my car.
Thick blurring ropes of water piled on the windshield, merely thinned by the swipe of wipers. I was drowning in a black hole not of my mind's making.
But Jess would be at its end.
One breath; two, then three, each deeper than the last. As air entered my lungs,
filling their inward sucking collapse, ending suffocation, the core of me stopped reeling.
The rain was blinding. The wind-socked car lurched over the line, Ohmygod, thank heavens, no oncoming car. That call was too close, it was one of the worst roller coasters I ever had to ride, but one of the shortest. The winds were terrifying.
My mind flashed on an image of Jessie's plane rubbing the runway, being thrown back into the air, a skyrider never to grip tarmac, my car then lifted by the blow, rising to meet the plane.
My lungs felt like leaden weights were closing them down, snuffing air.
The sign to O'Hare wavered under water.
At last I parked, shaking, mouth dry. I locked the car before battling the weather to cross the bus lane and reach the baggage area. Storm-battered sensations ceased in the too-bright shelter. Fragmented dialogue filled my ears, bodies circling, pressing, reminding me of my mission.
Jessie's flight would land in ten minutes, I read on the board. I found the ladies room, and composure.
Suddenly she appeared in the crowd riding the down escalator, satchel in hand, carry-on slung over a shoulder. She waved excitedly, a smile shining her sun-stroked face.
Confusion massed amid directionless people in search of family, friends, luggage, making me dizzy. I bent over and faced my knees until I felt solid again.
Jess and I merged paths, hugged and chorused "hello"; conversation was impossible. On the way to the car, I looked her over, thrilled by the sight of her at my side. Two plus inches of unpermed hair swept into a curling bun at the top of her head; she reminded me again of the Ivory Soap baby. She looked wonderful. She was home.
I felt better than I had since she left three months ago. Three months. "Jessie, are you glad you were there that long? Were you really comfortable down there? Did you fall in love? Your communiques told me nothing!"
"I'd've spent all my time writing you . . . I loved it, and I love the fact I'm home — it's so good to see you!"
She got her luggage and as we headed into the storm to get the car I said, "You've no idea how much I've missed you. But I want details, Jess, details of the highlights at least, as soon as we’re on the road!"
Back on the expressway the tires swooshed, hydroplaning the rain-streaming road, but I was no longer on the verge of the panic that had made the ride to O’Hare so awful.
Jess said, "I walked early in the morning and late in the afternoon, in between which I wrote, then swam, then wrote again like a maniac! And I ate! Seven extra pounds worth!"
"You'll take 'em off. You look wonderful. What about romance?"
"One man. He was some sort of mercenary from what I could gather — he skated on his charm, sensuality and rapier wit, talking about everything but his mission." Her sigh sounded satiated. “I never wanted to bring him home, but there is something to that claim about romance and foreign lands." She sighed again and clicked open her purse, withdrew cigarettes, shook one out and said, "I was comfortable down there; language wasn't a barrier, and my room was wonderful, as were the sights, the sounds, the people." She punctuated her intensity with the flick of her lighter and flamed the end of her cigarette, releasing more words in a puff of smoke: "The poverty is grotesque. I was wealthy by comparison; there is no middle class. And the Americans there may have left home, but they never left the decade of their departure. Hair styles, clothes and cliches from the fifties, sixties and seventies prevailed." She crushed the cigarette in the ashtray and turned to me. "It's great to be back, buddy! How have you been? How's Geltzer been treating you? And Jake?"
"You do the talking, I'm negotiating with the rain god to let us get home in one piece!"
She laughed and I laughed with her, absorbed by her energy and untold adventures.
"I've finished a short story," she said as we neared her street. "I might send it to the New Yorker. And I've begun a play! It's plotted, the characters are defined. I've roughed out the first act and a half. I like the medium — the mechanics intrigue me."
"What's it about?"
"Revolution, poverty, betrayal."
“No romance or comedy in those subjects” burst out of my mouth before I could stop it. I parked, we grabbed luggage and entered her Old Town coach house. "But powerful," I said, dispelling the unease, dispelling the chilled bumps on my arms.
"It's what’s there and I can't seem to write about anything else. I have to write it; I may be able to live with it then."
"Yes. Turn it into art, which we free spirits do." My spirit wasn’t free. Nor was my heart. These were facts that needed to change.
"It's so good to see you," Jess said warmly.
I thought about a fireside chat at my home.
"How about pizza by your fire tonight?"
"Why Jessie! You've added mind reading to your credits!"
We left our dripping coats to dry on the landing outside my door. The logs flaming, the pizza ordered, we relaxed in the living room over wine.
"Your turn," she said, grinning. "Start with Geltzer."
"I'll be living with a lover before summer."
"He's still digging that old ditch?" she cried, her disbelief derisive.
"He’s such a good shrink that he doesn't even understand that a lover hasn't been a goal since before you left — "
"You're feeling better!"
"Even I can't stand me."
"You're worth standing. You'll be out of this soon. How's Jake?"
"When I'm with him, I'm high and happy on passion, nature's antidepressant."
"What about you and lithium?"
"I'm taking it. But if I ever climb out of this, I'm going off it. Don't get excited. I won't stop it without medical supervision — I can't, just can't, lose my mind again." I shivered. "But I have to get off lithium. I have to know if I can function without it . . . before, or if ever, I can trust myself again. Lithium's a life sentence, so Beige-on-Beige has decreed," I announced, gulping my wine. "He offers no hope that I can ever go off it . . . No hope whatsoever." My voice shook almost as much as my hand when I set down my glass of wine. I brushed back my hair before I looked at her, awaiting her response.
“Don’t worry about that. There are ways around him.”
“Thank you for opening the door to that trap. And now that my life is textbook, let’s hear from you.”
“Obletzkrieg, I expected you to be in a lot worse shape, but you look good, your sense of humor's intact — "
"Artifice and you bring out the best in me. But neither gets me out of prison. Are you sure I won’t need lithium the rest of my life?"
"As I said, that isn’t an absolute. Besides, you're on thyroid medication for life."
"Apples and pineapples," I snapped. "I've no more emotional investment in my body than I do in my car — unless of course we're talking peritonitis versus bent fender. My mind always saved me from pain — I’ve got nothing without my own mind."
"You'll get it back. It's almost yours again now."
"It'll never be mine as long as it needs pills to function."
She lit another cigarette. "Stan will give us the name of a doctor who agrees with us."



********************************************************
Journal Spring 1982




THE HOLE OF NOTHING GROWS.


I DON'T SLIDE, IT ABSORBS.


DEATH CRIES: COME.


NOTHING IS EVERYTHING.














CHAPTER TWENTY








Dr. Marvin Simon towered above me when we met. Rimless glasses, whitening hair and a squared goatee added to his stature. He embodied the classic portrait of a psychiatrist. His voice was warm, his manner friendly. His intense blue eyes stared into mine.
"You look scared," he said gently.
His consolation sent tears to my eyes.
"Why don't we sit down and talk about it."
I took the chair beside his desk, gripping my purse on my lap. I waited, not daring to think, pushing hope aside.
"Let's review the past before we tackle the present, okay?" His smile parted his mustache and goatee.
I finished reciting my recent past and felt amazingly comforted. Unlike lithium jockey Geltzer, this doctor’s intent listening, and his gentle murmurings of wordless encouragement when I faltered made it easy to continue.
"You have had a time of it." This response released more tears; I took the proffered tissue and he said, "I'm sure you have questions. Ask away." He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, his gaze earnest through his glasses.
"Will you take me off lithium?" I held my breath.
"When you're stabilized, yes. Absolutely. We can't determine the extent of psychic damage unless you do go off the lithium."
"Thank you! I cannot tell you how relieved I am to hear that." My purse fell to the floor. I leaned over to retrieve it before meeting his eyes again. "How long does stabilization take?"
"About a year — let's see," he checked his notes then looked at me. "By August or September, give or take a few weeks, we can start withdrawing you from lithium."
"A year?"
His smile was reassuring. "It takes that long for the brain to recover from severely imbalanced chemicals. And I’m sorry, but there isn't anything I know of that can speed the process.” When he saw my reaction to that statement, he said, “August isn't that far away."
"Yes. It is."
"Your brain needs time to heal — you wouldn't expect a broken bone to mend right away."
"How old are you?" I blushed.
"Thirty-six — this fools them every time," he said, pointing to his hair. "I learned about lithium in school, if that's what you're getting at."
"Yes, well, Dr. Richard warned me that doctors over the age of forty missed the course. And in August or September, give or take, you'll take me off?"
"Definitely. We have to find out if your brain can work without it."
I looked at him and smiled. "You're my doc, then. You will take me on?" I loved his use of the word “we.” Unlike the editorial we or the we nurses use, he made me feel like a partner in action to combat mania and depression.
He continued to look at me intently for another moment, then said, "Only on one condition." My breath caught on jagged fear. "I treat patients only on a once-a-week basis."
"I wish I could see you daily," I declared fervently.
Our next session was less formal. We moved out of the office area to a couch separated from a pair of Eames chairs by a coffee table. I chose the couch, he pulled a chair close. There was peace in the room, a strong, easy quiet.
"Why don't you call me Marv," he said warmly. When I nodded, he smiled. "How much do you know about manic-depression?"
His low-key tone and caring interest made me feel safe. "Everything and nothing. I've listened to two psychiatrists expound on it, I've read Merck's version, and I do have some first hand experience with the phenomenon — But Marv . . ." The use of his first name stopped me, but just as I realized that I liked it, I was sucked into despair. It seemed forever before the rest of my thought arrived: "I snap at people who don't deserve it — I feel anger and fear all the time. I'm divided against myself. This isn’t me." I hid more tears behind a bunch of tissues.
"The rule of thumb with this kind of disorder is that there are no rules. Try not to let the moods throw you. Accept that this state of mind is temporary." He put his elbows on his knees and hid his beard in his hands. "Believe me, it won't last forever. It's a process, like any other. The more stabilized your brain chemicals, the better you'll feel."
"What do I do in the meantime? Stand on my head?" My eyes found his.
"Try not to be so frightened," he urged in a gentling tone. "If you can accept the fear as temporary, life won't be so tough on you. And Patricia?" His smile was encouraging. "The shifts in your mood are a physical function of disorder, not symptoms of madness."
"Are you sure?" Self-doubt dominated my confidence in him.
"Do you think I don't know my field?" His teasing was kind.
"I didn't mean . . . " I grabbed another handful of tissues and mopped my eyes. My father always tells me not to take him so literally — how many boxes of this stuff do you go through a week?" I tried to smile.
"In a good week, three to five." He closed his hands over his paunch and slouched in the chair. "Feel better now?"
"I think so."
"Give it time. We've only just begun." His hands dropped to his knees. "Can you describe the fear?"
I didn't know where to begin, how to begin. I twisted my bracelet around and around. "There's no end to one wave before another begins. It’s physical. Everything inside me hurts and weighs a ton." I studied his face for a signal, any sign.
What I witnessed was interest. "I'm afraid that the ‘messiah’ will come back; I'm afraid of my mind — I don't trust my thoughts, my actions, or my interactions at work or with neighbors. I can't. And I’m afraid of lithium."
"That's a pretty big burden you're carrying." His sympathy shed more of my tears. "What do you fear about it?"
"It makes my hands shake, it makes my ears buzz with the sound of mosquitoes. In the summer, I can't tell the biters from the buzzers — I spend half the night swatting air." I swallowed. "It didn't prevent depression." Futility weakened my tone.
"It may not be perfect, but let's take a look at what lithium has done for you," he
said. "It brought you back from psychosis, and it will prevent another episode. Try to remember that you’re safe from psychosis as long as you take the medication. And, although it’s difficult for you to judge at this juncture, lithium does lessen the impact of mood swings." He paused and pulled his goatee, stroking it before continuing. "Time, talk and lithium are the key regulators for a trauma such as you've suffered, Patricia. And I'm afraid there are no short cuts, no overnight remedies yet available. But if you can accept this, then you'll be well on your way to recovery."
"Guess there's nothing for it but to get the gun."
"A rather dramatic and final solution," he commented wryly. "Have you been flirting with suicide?"
"Sometimes it's the carrot that keeps me going — but I won't do it. Really! I couldn't. I couldn't hurt my parents that way. They nursed me through psychosis, not to mention childhood and adolescence. I love my parents too much."
"Love keeps you alive. A noble notion." He rested his arm on his leg and opened his hand as if to take mine.
“Death threatens my father and my mother through cancer.”
“I am very sorry to hear that. How are they now?”
“My father’s lymphoma remains in remission. My mother’s still not up to speed since her congestive heart failure due to the chemotherapy after her mastectomy.”
"So both of your parents are out of danger now,” he said. When I nodded, he
said, “Love was your motivating force through psychosis, wasn't it?"
“Yes, but I can't feel love anymore. I can barely remember what it's like. Sometimes I'm so numbed by hopelessness that I could kill for sleeping pills."
"Under the circumstances, your feelings are perfectly normal."
My bitter laugh rapped the silence between us. "Jess says that."
"Speaking of Jess," Dr. Simon said, "why did she make your appointment instead of you?"
"Why not? It was her friend who recommended you."
"But it should have been your call, not hers, no matter who had my number."
"I'm here. Besides, what's so important about who makes the call?"
"It's important that the person who needs therapy make the call. It shows recognition of the need for help, and the desire to get it. Is Jess in the habit of making decisions for you?"
"Do you see her here?" I sniped, suddenly unsure of him.
"The fact she called is highly unusual. Does she make decisions for you?"
"No! Yes . . . Sometimes she does, ever since — switching doctors was her idea. She's a better stabilizer than any drug I've known since this whole thing started. And she understands me better than I do."
"Don't misinterpret me, Patricia," he said hastily, holding up his hand. "I'm not knocking your relationship with Jess, I'm trying to understand it. You two seem bonded more closely than most. I'm glad she's there for you, okay?"
"Okay. How will talking to you help me?"
"By discussing your fears and your mood shifts, we can examine them from a clinical point of view, which will help you gain perspective and insight, equipping you to deal with them better," he explained with care.
"Talking about them with Jess does help."
"Yes, I'm sure it does. Keep talking to her. And talk to me . . . Can you accept your fears?"
"What's to accept? I'm scared out of my mind and not by choice." I laughed and the sound was brittle. "I've been out of my mind so long, maybe I'm afraid to get back in it."
"Now we're getting somewhere," he exclaimed and smiled. "And, oh no. Time's up. We'll start at this point next time. Have a good week."
Outside, I raised my face to the sun. It felt good. I left my coat unbuttoned and the winds slipped inside and chilled me. I reclaimed my car and headed for work, resting more easily in my mind, taking pleasure from the lake-fronted urban present.





***********************************************************************************************
Journal February 18, 1982

This hell distanced by medication may in fact actually might really end. I will get off lithium and find out who I am, what I have become.
Will fear of relapse still ride me? I cannot endure another crash back into reality. “That is the question. That is the rub.”















CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE








I wasn't free, but I was better.
Bright colors and attractive people ranged into my view. Laughter came more easily to me. Some days the sight of leafing branches against May-blue sky made me ache with virgin passion, a sweet feathering surge of creative need.
Oil paint colors streamed through my mind.
Desire to let loose on canvas grew.
I left work at five today and hurried home to the steeplechase painting I finished my first night home alone after three months in Florida with my parents.
For the first time since the onset of winter and my fall into depression, I opened my forest-green living room curtains. The light hurt eyes accustomed to shadows.
I stood in front of the fireplace. The more I looked at the horses flying around a steeplechase track, the more uneasy I became. And chilled.
Despite the power of the brilliant white horse catching up to the leader, despite the strong rich color, something vital was wrong.
Fear mushroomed and blinded me.
I choked on a pocket of air.
I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine, lingering to open the back door. A robin flew a twig to its nest.
In the dining room. I went to my purse on the table, took a cigarette, lit it. I exhaled until the smoke thinned and then disappeared before I opened the mail. Nothing required immediate response. I took my glass of wine to the living room and sat in the channel-back chair opposite the hearth. And I allowed myself to examine the painting that had taken three Memorial Day Weekends and one manic night to finish.
Its energy appeased my anxiety.
I stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray.
The jockey aboard the white horse. He was slumping over the neck of his mount.
His face was the mask of death.
That jockey was me.
My eyes burned.
Alarm receded.
Despair descended.
Awareness that the room was in twilight seeped into my mind.
I went to bed.
* * *
"I don't want to get together tonight, Jake. Believe me." I wanted to crawl into bed, but not with him.
"I leave for Eagle River the day after tomorrow," he said. "You'll miss me more if you say no to tonight."
"I'm having a rotten day and tomorrow doesn't look any better. I'll see you when you come back. Have fun."
He didn't argue and we said goodbye. It was only one o’clock. The day would never end.
I managed angry fear by sticking to the typewriter at work, by drowning in TV at night.
After sessions with Dr. Simon, I'd turn on myself for letting fear dictate. But the jockey was an intolerable sore that probing flayed.
One morning I snapped at a comment Marv made about the sudden cold spell.
"What's going on, Patricia? The temper is unlike you."
"What do you know? You see only the me I show you."
"Do you want to fight, or work on what's bothering you?" He lit a cigarette and slung his arms over the back of the chair, uncrossing his legs.
I took my purse from the cushion beside me, ready to stand. Something in his eyes stayed me. From the edge of the cushion, I heard myself tell him about the jockey.
Marv bent toward me and the leaning ash on his cigarette fell into the ashtray on the coffee table. "You can fix that jockey, Patricia."
"I actually thought something good had come from mania — will I never learn that nothing will ever be good again?" My words carried the sting of failure.
"It sounds like you already believe that." He put the cigarette out and eyed me. "What do you think?"
"Falling back on the classic question, Marv?"
"Is that how you wish to answer it?"
I burst into tears.
"It's okay to cry, Patricia." The calm warmth of his voice made me sob harder. Gradually pain lessened and my tears subsided. "Thank you." I manufactured a grin.
"You've let the swing into depression throw you. Feel good about yourself for completing the painting. You gave it three 'normal' years and failed. The fact the jockey isn't right is a minor setback, not reason to give up hope."
"I can't forgive myself for thinking the painting was good."
"You can't forgive an error in judgment under the influence of brain chemical imbalance? Come on now, Patricia. Be fair. I think you'd allow anyone else that right, wouldn't you?"
"I didn't see it that way."
"Of course not. You're in the quicksand of mental trauma where no other point of view exists. That's where I come in — how do you feel right now?"
"Better. But not good. Not like I did before I looked at that painting."
"You're forgetting to give the mood-shift time. Remember: time, talk and lithium. You'll start to swing up soon. And no, I can't say when!"
"I'm going to fix that jockey."
* * *
Memorial Day Weekend arrived. I set out for Milwaukee in my car around eleven-thirty in the morning.
Coming into the great curve passing the amusement park, the trees fell away.
The road fell away.
Suddenly I was free-floating in space, lifting, lifting, towed by an unseen force leading into blind terror, lifting higher, higher, without wings, the fallback greater, greater. Panic seized thought within the hollow blue sky's engulfment.
I could do nothing to stop this rise into reaches beyond my control.
I fought for air. I tried to stop the whirling, sickening rush into uncharted regions — seconds, minutes, I couldn't tell.
Realization I was driving the car crystallized fear, it triggered sharp alarm.
Thunder roared in my ears. Every time the fact I was driving at sixty miles an hour flashed into my mind I’d flinch, thoughts of an oncoming crash spinning me in and out of the abyss.
A humming sounded, growing louder, louder.
It was the sound of radials on the road.
I wept in relief at the sight of endless green fields meeting sun-bright sky, the black snout of my car forging ahead on the expressway, responding to my command.
I pulled onto the edge of the road and collapsed over the steering wheel.
I could have crashed.
Nothing like that had ever happened before. And it had happened without warning. I lit a cigarette, got out of the car, leaned on its door; as I breathed in the country air, I was glad to be alive.
I took air in deeply, letting it out slowly. In. Out. In.
The whoosh of cars passing felt threatening. I felt too exposed. Filled by frightening visions, I got back in the car and headed to Milwaukee, barely going thirty-five, ready to swing off the road at the first sign of panic. I was still shaking upon reaching my brother's home.
After the flurry of greetings, Cindy pulled me aside and whispered, "What’s wrong?"
I told her. She handed me a banana. "Sugar imbalance can cause that."
Michael, Cindy, Jacob and Eta, pillars of love propping me up. Peace came with them.
Three days later I headed home. I stopped for gas I didn't need.
The expressway waited two blocks down the street. The day was overcast, damp and chilling. Apprehension ran through me. The drive up had been crippling.
But the sun wasn't shining, and the varicolored clouds banking in waves above the horizon filled the unbroken endless sky-space that had sucked my attention and so terrified me on the drive up. Conditions for a good trip were favorable.
I paid for the gas and started the engine. In less than two hours, I'd be home.
The expressway was jammed. I felt protected in the close moving, slow-moving herd in the right lane.
Nearing the halfway point, apprehension lessened. Cigarette lit, I turned up the radio and loosened my hold on the steering wheel.
Colors slashed across the windshield space-movie-fast. I seemed to be hurling through space; I ducked and dodged vivid flashings. I was dazzled by the display beaming into my eyes, so bright, so glaring, even behind eyelids clenched shut.
But I was driving! I forced my eyes open.
Anxiety hit, sucking air, blinding sight.
Cars rushed by, demanding concentration.
Anxiety jolted again.
Ohmygod. Again I was driven by a power beyond me.
Again an external force ruled me, racing me through a tunnel that low clouds and mist had formed about the expressway, like the tunnel my mind had become.
I was paralyzed by the mad parade, by its blazing raid.
Recognition of delusion hovered, deflecting me from the shoals, even as I understood that the power driving me now was death, not hope.
Still, colors snared me.
The Lake Forest Oasis showed through on the right, its walkway marching across the highway, gaining ground against the undulating distortion drawn by my mind. I spun the wheel and suddenly I was speeding in front of the hood of an oncoming car, holding my breath until reaching the ramp, following white lines to a parking place.
Once safe, nausea hit me, along with dizziness, sunspots and shuddering spasms in my stomach, heart and head. Retching gasps fed air to my lungs.
I got the door open and leaned out, heaving in the blast of chilled air. When there was nothing left to lose, I got out and locked the car.
In the ladies’ room I rinsed my mouth and looked myself in the eye in the mirror. I never saw that look before, portrait of terror. Cornered in a booth, I drank tea for an hour, analyzing the ride. The “messiah” had been no more real than the colors, yet I hadn't known he was a figment of psychosis.
I never saw him.
What did it mean that the colors had been visible?
What did it mean that I knew it was a hallucination even while it was happening? But I couldn’t be psychotic. I wasn't psychotic.
Had expressway panic occurred last summer, perhaps I would have felt joy, not fear. Perhaps I'd be dead, not huddled over tea.
Panic had attended the messiah, but I hadn't had a label for it then. The illusion of delusion had been reality then. Yet I'd been conscious of mental trouble back there on the road, and there had been nothing I could do to stop it.
How much did awareness count? Could disorder be yielding to time, talk and lithium?
I couldn't wait for Marv's response to this latest offspring of imbalance.
By the second pot of tea, my pulse slowed and terror faded into a softer dimension of memory.
I was torn between returning to Milwaukee and going home.
I let that question simmer while I worked on regaining equilibrium, focusing on the positives of having been with my brother and his family.
Thirty minutes passed slowly. I was bored, ergo I was ready.
I was steady on my feet, and in my mind.
In the car, I gripped the steering wheel as if it were the reins of a wild horse and I re-entered the streaming line of traffic. Keeping below the speed limit and edging the emergency lane, I fought intermittent slashing colors, repulsing the more devastating forms of panic.
The journey took another hour. The phone was ringing when I walked in my door. My brother had begun calling ninety minutes ago, worried about my ride home, he said. Had I not answered this call, he'd have come looking for me. The last of fear drained from me when he said that.
Marv said the slashing colors were thoughts moving too fast to decipher. As in the speed of light? I asked, suddenly delighted by something I had to say.
"Congratulations," he said warmly.
I felt as though I'd just come through a final exam — with flying colors I dare say.
Hatred for disorder surged when expressway panic emerged as a full-blown phobia whether someone was in the car or not.
Disorder had distorted reality, it had commandeered self-trust. Now it wanted literal right of way, too.
Two or three times a week after work, I aimed my car at the expressway, hoping to conquer fear. Rage grew with every failure. I refused to stop trying.


*************************************************************************************
Journal June 10, 1982




Fear of driving is easier to bare.


















CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO










The last days of June were humid and still. In less than three months, I'd be lithium free.
The frequency and intensity of my mood swings grew fewer and further apart.
My hands shook with less and less perceptibility.
The buzz that assaulted my ears quieted, a soft dull drone.
The impact of literally having lost my mind was lessening. I began to write in my journal about it again and when the pages ran out, I retrieved my typewriter and set it on the dining room table, facing my forest green living room this time, not the dining room windows that had greeted me at dawn when I was writing Breaking Through to Happiness. I gave myself three hours and set the alarm, free to return to the typewriter. It felt wonderful to be writing to sell help rather than fashion and beauty products.
I couldn't write about my drift into depression. The thought of how that pain had hurt me drove me back into the tight, muddied tunnel of hopelessness that I’d crawled through to get to feeling more like myself. I couldn’t return to that sewer, that hell. I escaped my growing claustrophobia by calling Susan, turning my back on the typewriter, leaning against the doorframe entrance of my kitchen and, while we talked, focusing on the greenery and brick patio in the yard below.
Every night alone, I edited and added to my story of mania. When I read what my heart and spirit had written in a stream of my consciousness, my descriptions became more detailed, fleshing the outline of my previous version. I tried now and again, after seeing Jess or Jake, to unload the months of my suicidal desire. But when I forced myself to describe a difficult situation, despair engulfed me, until I returned to what I’d written about mania, called someone, read a book, watched TV, slept.
Every time I reworked my story, finding better words of expression, the joy of creation rose high again within me. If insanity could happen to me, it could happen to anyone. I really should write a book about it and save others from my fate. People survived physical trials more easily when their spirits were free, I knew that from personal experience. Painting and writing stories about my loves took away from my body’s torment, and my heart’s, but I hadn’t been able to paint since 1978 — I no longer could count that one manic night late in the fall of ‘81. But now I was painting again, with words this time, words that would save people from a fate worse than death.
Forewarned was forearmed, Jess said. She reiterated her offer to edit my “important story.” We knew I was too close to the subject for objectivity, and also that I needed an education in English grammar, not to mention one on how to “make readers care about” me. “You have to tell them what you think, what you feel, what you do for a living, the fact you're single. You’ll have a good beginning once you make them care about what happens to you; then they’ll be open to learning what you’ve learned about madness," she'd always add.
She had high standards and she was hard on herself, hard on others, but fair. Someday she'd say, "You've done it, it's good." I just wished that day would come soon. Her relationship with Stan was difficult, growing more so. Weeks would elapse when she'd refuse to see him, hoping that this time he'd propose marriage. Her three months in Mexico hadn't changed his mind about that. Nor would she consider the couch. Now and again, I'd suggest psychotherapy, usually after one of her panic attacks. The very idea made her visibly anxious. We'd talk then about writing.
Monet knew the joy of nuances, and I would gather nuances each time I retold my tale of madness. And when I fell in love with a revision, I showed it to Jessie.
"You're getting there," she'd say. And she'd point out what she liked and didn't like, and she told me why, her responses to my acts of creation following in my mother’s footsteps. But writing wasn’t like painting. Until Jessie started tutoring me, my sentences often were run-ons, I spelled a lot “alot,” and committed a host of other sins. I attributed my sentence fragments and run-ons to fashioning ad copy. Jess attributed my failures to the gothic mysteries and espionage books that I consumed. She often told me to read F. Scot Fitzgerald, Rebecca West, Colette, but their fertile prose somehow seeped inside me and their rhythms became mine, throwing me off track. I said I’d read them when I finished my book.
Every time Jess read the scene about the time I’d showed up at her place at the crack of dawn, believing that I’d written a bestseller, she'd rehash her impression that I'd been smoking pot. She never said anything about my depictions of her and others we knew.
"Add more details," she insisted. "Birthplace, career, the color of your hair and eyes. And describe feelings and reactions as well as actions."
There was so much I didn't know about the fine art of writing, and Jess was an unparalleled teacher: illuminating, demanding, inspiring. After our sessions, passion drove me back to the typewriter and chapter one.
I felt alive only when passion centered me. Passion carried me only when I worked on my book, or when I was with Jake.
When I mentioned my book to my sister, Maggie, she'd say: "Why would anyone want to read a book about you?"
"It isn’t about me, it’s about mania and depression. If I'd known the symptoms, I wouldn’t have lost my mind."
"But it's about you," Maggie would repeat. "Write about something else. Make up a story. Then someone might want to read it."
Luckily, everyone else encouraged my book. They said my writing was improving. Jess also demanded that I read Hemingway. But I couldn't. I read to escape reality.
Maggie kept putting down the only thing about myself that I could like, my book the only thing I could talk about with her without tears. Our conversations shortened. I wasn't strong enough to tolerate her rejection. It implanted doubt, accessory to anxiety.
I stopped calling Maggie, and she didn't call me.
* * *
Writing my story helped me. Writing it made order of disorder; it let me taste self-control; it softened the shock of living with the knowledge that I’d lost my mind. It gave my hell a positive spin, it gave me meaningful work and purpose.
The joy, the intensity and the conviction of mania were gone and I missed them. Writing to help others avoid my mistakes sated my passion. Otherwise, I needed Jake.
I tried to write about my cycle of depression again. Panicky feelings choked me. I kept trying, but I was having as much success with this as I was having in overcoming expressway panic.
Anxiety tracked time, at times with a fierce strength. I really was very lucky to have enough people in my life to catch at least one of them on the phone whenever I stepped into another minefield.
Last night anxiety attacked again. Too much. Next time I literally would have a heart attack. As soon as I got to work, I called Dr. Simon. Luck was with me again — instead of getting his machine, I got him. "It's happening too fast. I'm up, I'm down. I've lost control. What do I do?"
"Help yourself and just stop writing," he said calmly. "It stirs up your thoughts too much. It sets you off balance."
The thought of not writing anymore was hurtful, but I had no choice. I mourned this loss of love and then realized that I’d stopped the craziness without having to increase the lithium. My reward was a gain in self-respect, if not self-trust.
After hearing of Marv’s edict to stop writing, Jess read the latest version of my manuscript. She said, "When you can come back to it, you've got to think about every word choice; you have to consider whether adjectives add to or take away from what you want to say. And stop worrying because you can't write right now. You need distance to tell this story properly and you're still new to manic-depression."
"New! Almost a year, thank you."
"It took Eugene O'Neill fifty years to write Long Day's Journey Into the Night."
"You mean I can't write my journey through psychosis till I'm ninety?"
At home that night, I pulled out the manuscript and inked block letters on the first page: Journey Through Psychosis. I put the pages in a box and stored it under the bed.
Days moved swiftly now. Withdrawal from lithium would start in September. The process would take ten weeks. Each drop required two weeks for evaluation. Impatience was a burr in every thought, but I gladly would pay any price to own my own mind again.
Marv listed the steps of approaching disorder. Increased agitation and overreaction made sense, though agitation was easier to discover. The fact he claimed that happiness was more suspect than any other reaction seemed hilarious. I did laugh the first time he told me that. But then I remembered that Dr. Richard had listed happiness as the most insidious quality of mania. Anger edged my words as I said, "So joy becomes a persecution I've got to prosecute — should joy ever come my way again and I've the objectivity to recognize, not to mention remember, that happiness has become a suspicious character in my book."
Marv agreed that objectivity was not my strong suit. He also promised me that objectivity would come in time. This statement sounded reasonable to me, which reassured me.
The week before Labor Day, Marv told me to drop five lithium to four. I was on my way back to myself. It didn't matter that I felt stable. I wouldn't believe it until I was operating without lithium. Only then would I dare to believe that I was free. Only then could I know that my mind was mine again.
The horror of this past year slid further off my back, a cape of black satin lined in blood red, the kind the supernaturals of the underworld wore. Oh yes, I thought, hugging myself. Journey would not only help people, it was a good story. Not many ride with a god who becomes a holy hell.
Excited and tempted as I was to write, I waited, fighting impatience on the way to zero lithium. I wanted this work to be all mine, no credit to, no hindrance from, lithium.
I'd only four more weeks to wade through before my rendezvous with Journey. Oh why wasn't I born with patience.
* * *
Jess and I sat down on the tufted black leather banquettes in the wine bar at La Bastille.
Finally settled, she said, "What bee stung you?"
"Tomorrow I drop another lithium. Just two pills between me and a messiah."
"You've had no problem on three and chances are that you’ll feel even better than you do now!"
"I love optimism."
"You used to call it positivity."
"If I start uttering that word again, throw me in a padded cell!"
"You've been paying attention to your mood changes, haven't you?" Her words thrummed with nervous energy.
"So far this cucumber ain't in a pickle!"
"Do you trust Marv?"
"His phone number's tattooed to my wrist!"
"How would you feel if I went to him for therapy?" Her voice quivered with anxious question.
"You'd be out of your mind if you didn't!"
"Maybe I'll give him a shot, then. Sure you wouldn't mind?"
"If you don't see him, it won't be just panic that attacks you."
Jess often had met me for coffee after sessions with Marv. We'd analyze his perceptions, methods and attitudes, and how I felt about them, decompressing before work. Also, I realized now, they must have served as an audition for his possible role in her life.
"You're absolutely sure . . . "
"He's not a lover, Jessie." I grinned and she raised her wine in salute. "And we both need help with dilemma. I want off lithium so badly I could scream, but I'm terrified of losing its protection. You want Stan to commit to marriage, but you don’t want to lose him."
"What would I do without you?"
"What would I do without you?"
Emotion overwhelmed me until I remembered her love-life. "What happened with Stan last night?"
"The ultimate backslide." She finished her wine and flagged the waiter. "The only thing we shared last night was the sound of his voice — yet another emergency at the hospital." Her sigh was more like a moan. "Stan's my lithium conflict. And like you, I've got to let go."
"Gird the loins, woman. Denouement approaches. But Jessie, does breaking up with Stan have anything to do with your decision to see Marv?"
"Possibly. Probably." Glazed with tears, her eyes looked like fragile blue crystal. She toyed with a box of matches. Open, close. Open, close.
Her break with Stan was more than the end of love, it was a break with the past. In my sorrow for her, I was happy for her.


*****************************************************************************
Journal Entry September 1982




Either I've been down so long it's now up to me,
or else I'm actually coming out of disorder. But too well I remember
the speed of mania and its singular compelling force.
Good thing some things stayed in my mind while I was out of it.














CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE










The phone on the floor by the sofa rang.
"I have some rough news from Florida,” my brother Michael said. “Dad has cancer again. He’s having minor surgery for a ‘small tumor’ tomorrow afternoon."
"Are we going down to be with him?" In the drilling cold of his news, fear shot through me, rang hot in my ears. I clutched the phone and paced the living room rug. My thoughts were narrow and black, like the rug's border. “Michael?”
"It’s minor surgery. We aren’t needed for this one. And we’ll know more afterward."
Perspiration soaked my forehead, my upper lip, my hair. My skin felt like ice, my insides were icy. "What time will that be?"
"By four or five tomorrow afternoon. I should have waited until we had answers before telling you about this."
"Oh no you shouldn’t have! I’m a voting member of this family. I'm just shocked that cancer came back. How are they doing?"
"Dad sounded good, Mother a little tired. They'll call you tomorrow."
"Michael . . ."
"He's having minor surgery."
"Sure. A minor problem — "
"Take it easy. You can't do anything about it now. We have to wait for the facts. All the tests could come back tomorrow afternoon."
"Oh, Michael. Everything was finally, finally . . . "
"He's strong, Patricia. He'll beat this too. Sure you're okay?"
"Yes . . . Yes." How could he sound so calm?
We talked about family, about work. When we started on the weather, we said goodbye. I dropped heavily to the sofa, my head pressed into my palms. I stared at the rug until its geometric design blurred. The streaking pain of a headache roused me. I dragged myself to the bedroom and crawled into bed. Fear and rage and hopelessness warred inside me. I turned on the television. Reds, there were so many reds on that screen. And darks. No reds, all darks.
Moving colors and mingled voices increased my confusion. I turned off the TV, grabbed the phone and called Jess. No answer. I didn't speak to Susan's machine. My lithium-free paradise was lost.
I set up the dining room to write and read the first page of the manuscript that I’d abandoned last July. Before halfway through the second page, I inserted a fresh sheet in the typewriter and started again at the beginning of my run into mania.
I worked on Journey Through Psychosis until my back hurt and my eyes began to close.
My father left the hospital three days later. Not very minor, I told Michael.
I told Marv that I had to work on my book for a few hours at night. He said, “Just remember that, if you speed up and your moods begin to swing, all you have to do is to stop writing.”
Writing my story to warn others filled me with purpose, gave my new life meaning. Writing enveloped me in the golden warmth of compassion, even as my passionate spirit and heart were freed to conceive in streams of my consciousness. I didn’t find out what I’d written until I read my new flow of words, amazing and challenging me. This joy had been mine when I used to step back from playing with colors on canvas and first see what my spiritual forces had produced.
Even in art school, I never knew how my paintings of models would turn out.
Writing and TV, books and Valium got me through the nights, and work or friends got me through the days.
The week ended at last; my father was given a prescription for a series of intense radiation treatments. His spirits were up. I tried to match my mood to his, succeeding when we spoke on the phone.
He got better. My mother's cough got worse.
Mithe. my Mither, was hospitalized for pneumonia, which upset me for her, but didn’t worry me. Michael and I both had pneumonia and had survived it. And her doctors were two of the best in the country, thanks to Uncle Benny, our father’s older brother; he’d been the orthopedic department chief at Buffalo General Hospital for many years. The old boys’ network in the medical profession linked him to the best specialists available.
Today’s call from Michael was devastating. X-rays revealed a spot in Mother’s lung. Her medical team suspected cancer and would operate as soon as she recovered her strength.
My throat closed against food. My two packs of cigarettes a day went to three. My lungs felt heavy and tight. By mid-evening, the searing that followed each inhalation made me put out cigarettes after two or three puffs. But it didn’t make me stop smoking.
My father. My mother. My creators, my saviors.
At work, concentration was impossible. At home, I hunched over the typewriter until exhaustion sent me to bed. I noted that I was speeding, that sleep occupied less time. I didn't ignore my agitation — my state of mind was due to circumstances beyond mental health, circumstances that would arouse these responses in anyone.
Dr. Simon eyed me at every session, exaggerating that look in his eyes as he repeated what he knew he didn’t need to say. We discussed my fear for my parents, my return to my book, and the fact I was speeding again.
He told me to slow it down, to stop writing by eight at night, to focus on one project at a time at the office. Also, he told me to eat more. How could I? My throat barely opened for air.
Food and sleep were the first to go whenever time was intense, for as far back as I could remember. What I was feeling had nothing to do with mania, or depression.
The Thursday before Thanksgiving, at Marv’s office, "Is it happening again?" burst out of my mouth without premeditation or consideration. I locked my eyes on the smoke trailing from my cigarette, bracing myself for whatever his answer would be.
"You're in a stress-loaded situation. If you don't alter your present course, Hypomania will run you into mania. Pay attention to yourself, Patricia. The conditions I've just cited are a breeding ground for disorder." His stern delivery was more upsetting than his words.
"You won't see me next week, will you?"
"No, but you have my home number. Use it. And if you want to see me, we can arrange something. Okay? And let’s start the lithium again."
“Not yet!” I was shaking when I left him. The “not yet” surprised me, sickened me, hinting of capitulation.
Skyscrapers reared around me, seemed to waver in the billowing raw mist.
Hypomania. How could that be?
But he was right about my being in a stress-loaded situation. If only . . . I diverted helpless rage from cancer to mania.
Maybe I was hypomanic. But I would not enter mania again. I would find an alternative to writing at night after eight. I could curb my writing, if not the insanity of cancer. And no more pizza at the typewriter.
That night, I combated sleeplessness with Valium. Fifty milligrams hadn't worked in the days leading to my messiah. I'd take them until they knocked me out. I would write till eight, I would sleep at least seven hours, I would . . .
"Come into the kitchen while I fix dinner," I told Jess that evening. "I'll be damned if I'll tempt psychosis."
"Did you pick up fruit?" she asked, eyeing strip steaks, wild rice and salad ingredients.
I dropped a head of lettuce in the sink, dried my hands, added fruit to the grocery list. "What else should I stock, o' seer of proper nutrition?" I turned the notepaper over to add her suggestions.
We ate on trays in the living room — the manuscript owned the dining room table. “Dr. Simon seems to know his stuff," she commented after confiding that her anxiety and nightmares were waning. "But I'm not sure he's handling you right. You're losing too much weight too fast and, by the looks of that stack on the table, you're . . . How much sleep are you getting?"
"Not a lot, doc, but I cannot turn off fear with the lights unless I'm too tired to think. I only reach that point after too many hours at the typewriter, even with the help of Valium." She shook her head. "But I won't write after you leave. Marv said I was Hypomanic. He said to stop writing at eight."
"Can you?"
"I better. What else can I do?" Tears filled my eyes. My stomach churned.
"There's lithium . . . "
"No! Absolutely not. I'm going to master mania if it's the last thing I do!"
"Just make sure it isn't the last thing you do. And exercise. Exhaust your body after work and save the writing for weekends. You'll be surprised what miracles are worked by physical exertion."
"Exercise is against my principles, Jess."
"Running every day has tamed my anxiety. Try it. What do you have to lose? And don't judge the benefits for at least two weeks. And while we're on the subject, start eating between meals."
I fought the fury that rose at her words. "Who hired you to be Marv Two?"
"Your mother's operation isn't for another two weeks and your father's radiation treatments won't be over till May. You can't go on this way. Something's going to give. And if you're adamantly opposed to lithium — "
"It'll be the last resort," I said, tasting defeat.
"Then see how it goes. If turning off the typewriter at eight doesn't work, then you have a choice: good food, sleep and exercise . . . Or lithium."
"I'm off lithium. I can control my own mind. You'll see."
"Patricia," her tone was a warning, "eat and exercise. You no longer have a choice."
"I'm open to suggestions, not directives, okay?"
"I'm not going to stand by while you fall apart again. You know what's happening. You've no excuse this time."
"I'll stand or fall on my own, thank you. No one appointed you my keeper." My ears burned. My heart hammered. My fists clenched.
She puffed on a cigarette, eyeing the smoke as it left her mouth, watching it drift in lazy layers in the air between us.
My anger dissipated with the smoke and wearily, I said, "I’m sorry. I think I'm afraid I won't be able to make a move without consulting you first."
"I keep forgetting you've been through this already — I should think you’d do anything to avoid losing your mind again. However, I'm telling you right now, if you don't get yourself into a solid health program, you'll head right into trouble." She looked at me worriedly. "To be honest, I'm not sure it's possible to control your brain chemicals without lithium, no matter what you do."
"Thanks for the confidence, pal." Hurt and fear twisted inside me. But I swallowed wine and said, "I'm telling you right now, this thing may be bigger than both of us!" I laughed, and when she joined me, the noise of our mirthless release slowed the speeding beat of my heart.
The last of the friction between us cleared and Jess said, "What's the latest on your parents?"
"My father's amazing! He's on the golf course the day after radiation. It's my mother who worries me most . . . "
"The tumor might not be cancerous. You don't know. And your father's coming along. They're going to be okay, Patricia. Both of them. That's what you should think about. And that's a direct order, Obletzkrieg! Hear me?" Her lips formed a pinched line, covering the grin that had briefly shaped them. "They shouldn't have to worry about you, too."
"I know."
After she left, I found myself standing before the typewriter. It was just after ten.
I turned out the lights on the way to the bedroom, turning on the news before getting into bed. In the night table drawer lay Valium. I took out the vial and debated how many to take.
I read for a while and felt drowsy. I didn’t need the Valium.
When I turned off the light, the session with Marv and the evening with Jess lodged in my thoughts.
Hypomanic.
It was impossible to lie still, eyes closed. Jessie's take-charge manner earlier came back to me and anger inflamed me. And yet, I needed her: her strength, her knowledge. Her love. If not for Jess, I'd still be seeing Dr. Geltzer, I'd still be on lithium. I'd still be helpless and hopeless. Our friendship, as Marv had observed, was unusual. We knew mental bondage. Jess had pointed this out months ago.
Confrontation with abnormality had taken our pleasure in each other’s free-spirited wit to the deep and dark dimension of need, a tie with the power that made the unbearable bearable. Not even Stan and Marv knew the terror of aberration as we did. With all their medical education and experience, they knew only of mental treason. But Jess still didn’t know the source of her panic and, although finally getting help, she refused medication beyond exercise and wine. How dare she tell me to take lithium! Perhaps abhorrence of lithium in itself was an aberration of sorts. I knew it worked. Lithium it would be — if I couldn’t master my mind on my own. That decision expressed either strength of character or lunacy. So what? It was the only way I could live with myself.
At four-twenty AM, I took another ten milligrams of Valium. I would've taken more, but I’d still be drugged when the alarm went off. Tonight I'd start with twenty milligrams of Valium at eleven, and continue taking one until sleep claimed me.
* * *
"Susan, I'm so glad you could make lunch today."
"What's wrong?" She viewed me from across the wooden plank table in the Towne and Country restaurant, her eyes filled with anxious inquiry.
"Don called me into his office this morning." I pulled a cigarette from a pack and lit it. "He wanted to know if everything was okay with me because my work of late was rushed and superficial." I dragged on the cigarette, held the smoke deep in my lungs, released it in a cloud. "He gave back the last three projects — they were positively green with the ink of his comments, all negative."
"What did you think of them?" She seemed so calm in the face of my stir.
"I'm afraid I had to agree." I groaned and ground out the cigarette in the ashtray.
"Does he know about your parents?"
"Yes. But as we know, personal problems have no place in professional matters . . . I guess I was in too great a hurry to clear my desk before the holidays. I'll stick to third gear from now on." I couldn't meet her eyes. I lit another cigarette.
"Use first and second before you rev into third," Susan suggested easily, adding a smile.
"I'm not sure I can."
"Have you talked to your doctor about this?"
"No, not this precise specific, but last week, he told me to concentrate on one project at a time."
"And?"
"I thought I had, but obviously, whatever it was I was doing didn't work. Susan, I'm losing control again. I — "
"Take it easy. You're not losing control. If even one of my parents had cancer, I'd be a wreck. You're scared, that's all. I'm sure Don understands."
"He was supportive, concerned and kind, as always. It's just. Oh Susan. I'm not sure I can handle this . . . "
"Yes you can. Now just try to relax."
"I'm glad you didn't just tell me to relax, I'm glad you understand how hard it is to relax under these conditions — fifty milligrams of Valium can't keep me asleep five hours."
"That doesn't sound good. Maybe you should tell the doctor. When we get back, call him and then start with the first piece you gave Don. Just take your time, reread the strategy, and Don's comments, and begin again. I should never have let you talk me out of reading your work before Don did, so bring the revisions over and we'll go over them together. Don't worry, you'll make the rewrites good."
At my desk I reread the copy Don had returned. It read like my thoughts: incomplete. When I gave it to Don, I'd thought that it had been absolutely on target, that the headlines had been shows of brilliance. The fact I'd lost my professional eye was a cramp I couldn't unlock.
I'd once thought I was typing the messiah's new bible.
I was speeding faster now, physically and mentally. I left a message for Marv. He called within the hour and said he could see me at 4:30 the next day.
Time took on an underwater slowness, and then suddenly it was the next day and time to leave work to see Marv.
"I've been writing," I told him, quick to add, "but not past eight, except on weekends. And I'm eating right every day." My bravado faded. "My boss returned my work. He said it was unacceptable."
"What about sleep?"
"Somewhere between intermittent and superficial." I looked at him. "Fifty milligrams of Valium slows me down enough to close my eyes maybe five hours."
"How much time are you giving the first ten milligrams to act?" He was leaning back in the Eames chair, stroking his goatee, watching me.
Why was he avoiding my problem at work? "Twenty minutes, I guess. At the end of which, I'm still so cranked up, I'm afraid not to take another one."
"Start taking them at eight and wait thirty minutes. If you're not slowed down by then, then take another ten — they're more effective that way. If you need more after another thirty minutes, take it. That's what they're there for. But call me before you take more than three. How do you feel in general?"
"Scared . . ."
"Is the unacceptable work why you called?"
"Yes. Little things throw me, too."
"How so?" He fired a cigarette and puffed quietly while I ordered my thoughts.
"I panic at the slightest provocation now: traffic, sudden noises, shadows . . . Nothing full-blown!" I added when his features reflected concern. "I feel a near constant but gentle kind of anxiety. And I'm reacting, not acting. Overreacting, probably." I fumbled with cigarettes and lighter and extended the silence until smoke exploded from my mouth. "When not at the typewriter or with others, I pace the floors. I can't concentrate on TV or books anymore. In fact, this past weekend, writing was the only relief I — "
"The story of the messiah?"
"Yes. Why is that my only way out?"
"You've been keeping journals for a long time, haven't you?"
"On and off since I was ten."
"There's your answer. Writing about the madness helps you exorcize the experience. Just keep the writing to a minimum — for you, it can cue imbalance."
"Do you think I'm okay?"
"I think you're reacting to your parents' situation." He offered his hands palms up to me. "But as we've talked about before, you're exhibiting all the signs of Hypomania. Try and slow things down. And Patricia? Calling for an extra session was a healthy thing to do. Let's meet twice a week for a while. That way, we'll be able to keep a close eye on things."
"Okay."
"I expected some resistance from you," he said with a smile.
"Not anymore, Marv. I don't want to miss a trick, I don't want to take any chances — if seeing you more often will help control my mind, I'm all for it."
"And if I say you should start lithium again?"
"But you haven't said that!" I cried, alarmed by the idea.
"No, not yet. But when will you accept the fact you have a chemical imbalance that’s easily triggered by stress? And easily balanced by lithium?"
"When the scales of injustice balance," I snapped. I cringed under the sympathy in his eyes. "Taking lithium again would mean defeat. It would mean that I have no say, no control, over my own mind. Don't you understand that?"
"I do, Patricia. And that's a problem you have to come to terms with. The propensity of your brain chemicals toward imbalance under stress won't disappear. You have to stop fighting it and start dealing with it."
"But I did deal with it — for a whole year!"
"And if you're not careful, you'll give it another year, and another . . . "
"You're so inspiring, I may just jump out that window right now." Unwanted tears filled my eyes. "I didn't mean that. It's just . . . just too much, that's what it is. Too much."
"It is a lot. You've a right to be upset. But you're doing okay. Just don't lose your perspective." He offered a wry smile. "And remember: you have the power to control imbalance simply by taking a little pill."
"Sure, Marv. Right, Marv. Thanks Marv.”

**************************************************************************
Journal Entry January 31, 1983




Why does no one understand my fear of lithium?
Is it unreasonable? Irrational?
What kind of life can I live if I cannot trust my thoughts and actions?







PART III: INSIDE THE DEATH CANAL
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR










Nothing was festive this season of holidays. The heat in Florida was impossible. The humidity was intolerable. I wanted to leave before the first of the year but didn’t know how to tell my parents.
The night I arrived, my father went to work in his home office, and I went to the shades of blue and white bedroom he shared with Mithe. She was on her side under the bed covers, the room shuttered against daylight, cave for her barely audible moans. She stirred and rolled over and we said hello in unison.
The hazel of her eyes was more gold than green, their gleam so alive above the sunken pads so dark beneath them. After we exchanged quick kisses, she said, "Honey, if something should happen, if cancer comes back, if they can't control it — "
"Oh, Mithe."
To hush her, to comfort myself, my arms went around her, hovering away from her wound.
The cool silk of her nightgown covered sharp bones under flesh thinned by illness. My lips on her neck felt her warmth and the slender slow pulse of her heart. My arms tightened in my aching for her. She flinched, and I loosened my hold. I didn't let go.
"Promise you'll give me something if I can't take anymore, if there's no hope, if they can't help . . . please . . . "
"We'll go to Amsterdam, home of euthanasia, Mithe. We'll see the Rembrandts again! Don't worry. I promise you won't suffer." I held her, rocking us back and forth, back and forth, thinking about life too painful to live. My plunge toward suicide had had the lifeboat of time, talk and lithium, aids that wouldn't help my dear little Mithe.
I wouldn't, I couldn't, let her live in interminable terminal pain. We could leave this life together.
We spoke a little longer about masters of art and she said she could sleep.
Drawing covers over her, I leaned down and whispered, "Don't worry, I'll help you. Now rest and recover from cancer's latest defeat."
She never let us stay with her longer than it took the nurse to take a break — she sent my father to sleep in his office on the sofa bed.
Her doctors yet again scheduled “precautionary” chemotherapy. Hope for her drained, darkening her place in my heart, lining it with metallic fear.
Chemo would begin when she healed from surgery. A team of heart and lung specialists would monitor her.
We didn't discuss the future, my father and l.
My mother didn't mention the future again.
It hurt to see her in agony.
It hurt to see my father walk slowly and with a stoop.
Florida was a miasma of pain.
I hammered the keys of my father's typewriter. I filled yellow legal pad sheets with ink.
In Florida, I finally wrote about my experience with depression. Helplessness and hopelessness raged within, too savage to contain. Choosing the words and their order distanced my pain, buffered at last by an act of creation, the artist in me alive again, this time in black and white.
When not writing, I was with family, sometimes with friends of my parents. With them, my declarations of hope were intense, racy, shrill. There was nothing I could do about it because I couldn’t stop talking to them about death versus my parents. I needed to hear them say, she’s a fighter, she’ll beat this one too. Lethal threats scared the wits out of me and I’d have to be too doped up to think in order to control this terror of mine, this all too-human terror of watching dearly beloved people fight losing battles against the eternity of death.
Fifty milligrams of Valium every night put me out for the minimum of required hours.
"Datsun!" my father exploded one day. "What's with all this writing?"
"I'm writing about my Journey Through Psychosis — a non-fiction accounting to warn others about how easy it is to lose your mind, your heart, your spirit. It’s not another bible."
"I'd like to read it."
I thanked him with a hug before I handed him a pile of typed pages.
It seemed only minutes before he returned.
"Thank you, Patricka." He sounded relieved. "I could read it, understand it, and I learned more about you, so I guess you're okay."
So that's why he'd wanted it. "What'd you think of the writing?"
"It's good, very good. I'd like to read more. And there are a couple of things I have questions about. Do you have time to go over them now?"
* * *
Back in Chicago, my emotions heated in the frozen January air.
Sessions with Dr. Simon got rough. He kept pushing lithium at me. "What is this dislike you have of the drug?"
Angry fear sickened me. "Pills for the body are one thing, but for the mind? I can't. The mind is the home of imagination, my way out of pain. I lost my mind, Marv. I lost the only part of me I could trust. And now you're telling me I'm going to lose it again unless I drug my spirit day as well as night — without lithium, would the ‘messiah’ come back?"
"There's no telling what would happen, but we don't have to find out if you'll accept this little pill with big pull. And it happens to work for you. You'll keep your mind by taking it."
"Lose my mind to lithium, you mean."
"So that's it."
* * *
I waited for the messiah's appearance so I could deny him. I waited for my parents to recover. When not in conversation or at the typewriter, my state of agitation was relentless.
I stopped writing at midnight, not at eight, lengthening my freedom from fear. At eight, I'd take the first ten milligrams of Valium, taking another ten every thirty minutes until I felt like I could read a few pages of a novel, and then sleep.
The last character that caught my attention before shutting down revolved in my mind like a mantra.
I slept three to four hours.
I added breakfast to my menu and ate cereal while editing the work of the night before. When Susan suggested that I cut caffeine from coffee and cola, I did, but I didn’t slow down.
I sped through days, work an ongoing five-day road to weekends blurred by brunching, dining, shopping, running around. I raced through nights, fearing for my mother's life, fearing that I’d lose to lithium again.
High-piled snow muffled the sounds of the city on a late January Sunday. I awoke before six, frozen with dread. Mother's first chemo treatment was tomorrow.
The hairline crack in the bedroom ceiling had widened and split; it was oozing chunks of plaster and dust.
When had that happened?
My feet were icy, my hands, my nose. I turned on the electric blanket and, while waiting for it to warm, panic swept through me.
In the seize of alarm, I saw my mother dead and my father dying. I saw myself still in hell.
I was so cold.
The bedroom walls began closing in on me. I could feel the pressure of plaster through blankets, pressing on my heart, my lungs. I heard a torturing siren wail.
It came from me.
As the last note of anguish silenced, the walls sucked the last air from the room. Did Jess call me? Did I call her? She said to count to a hundred and she'd be at my gate.
"Anxiety strikes again," she said, sailing across the threshold to hug me. "How's the breathing?" She stood back to look at me, her head at an angle, her eyes appraising.
Stertorous gasps escaped from me.
She produced a small brown paper bag from her pocket and put it in my hand. "This one's been tested and, as you well know, it works!"
I took the bag and breathed into it, suddenly feeling silly. And lightheaded. But breathing more easily. "It does work," I said.
The relief of being able to catch my breath was huge; it overshadowed terror; it let Jessie's voice into my thoughts.
"Let me get a good look at you, buddy. Yep. The signs are clear: white face, bloodless lips, and quite a nice glaze over the eyes." Her light mockery of a doctor's tone made me grin. "Work on that breathing and head for the sofa. I'm heading for the kitchen to make a pot o' tea. Why don’t you call Marv?"
Yes; of course.
"Dr. Simon? Oh Marv . . . It's Patricia. I, I think it's time . . . " I choked.
"Time? What's happening?" His equanimity was absent.
"Panic — lithium, I, I . . . "
"Take a deep breath and try to relax," he directed calmly, pausing. "Tell me what's been going on."
Between sobs, I reported the morning's events. Grimly, I said I wanted lithium.
"That's quite a request, coming from you. Congratulations."
"Panic is worse than the pill."
Once he determined that I had lithium and Valium on hand, and that Jess was with me, he said to call him in the morning for an appointment that day.
"Why couldn't I control it? Why?"
"What is this?" he mocked gently. "You know you're genetically rigged to lose control under serious stress. Stop trying to fool yourself. And Patricia? I'm glad you called for lithium."
"So," Jess exclaimed, carrying a tray of tea and toast, "what does the good doc Marv have to say?"
"You know what he said." I slumped on the sofa, weighted by defeat. I could not control my mind.
Rage fought despair. "Jessie?"
"I know, I know," she soothed. "Have some tea and toast and chew on this: lithium's a birth control pill that prevents unwanted demons." I managed to smile. "Listen to me," she said, her tone intense. "You've saved yourself from another trip through psychosis. You can be proud of that. You should be proud of that fact. You are in control! Don't you see?"
"No." I moved toward her, pulled her to the sofa, leaned against her. There was no friction between us. Need had supplanted independence.
"You called Marv,” she said. “You swallowed the pill. Last summer, you called no one. Last summer, you were out of control. Today, you're not."
"But last summer, no one knew, especially not me, that I was ever out of control, so you can't compare now to then . . . "
"I just did! And I'm right. Trust me on this. Last summer was the beginning of a new way of life for you. And you've just passed the most important test." She threw her arms around my neck in a swift embrace. "You've nipped disorder in the bud — butt, if you prefer — and that's worth a medal!" She jumped up and took the candlestick, holding it like a sword, tapping my shoulders once each. "And now, Lady of Order, shall I light the fires and warm the castle?"
She disappeared into the small room off the living room and reappeared with logs.
The rest of the afternoon, we laughed more than we cried in the warmth of flames dancing in the fireplace.
Monday morning, and Marv. "You look okay, considering," he greeted me, his smile broad. "How do you feel?"
I squirmed on the couch, trying to find a secure pocket. Eventually, I said, "About anywhere along the scale of futility, rage and relief."
He nodded knowingly, his squared-off goatee prodding his chest. "Why did you wait so long to ask for lithium?" His eyes bored into mine.
"I didn't think I needed it." His eyes narrowed, spurring me on. "I had to find out how far I could get without . . . Not very far. No. My self-control seems to have an automatic shut-off point beyond my control." I shook my head, anger rising with my tears.
"That's not a new concept for you, but I'll give you points for trying. You fought a good fight."
"Yes. I ate. I controlled the writing." I flashed him a grin. "I didn't speed to a different drummer."
His hands, hanging from the arms of his chair, were still. "Next time, I hope you won't wait till you get hit on the head again."
"Will I go off lithium again?"
"When the stress load lightens, yes, you will."
"Am I headed back into the tunnel?"
"You go only as low as you go high. Remember the heights of your first go-round with mania? And the depths of that first depression?"
"I don't think I could survive another one."
"And now you don’t have to worry about that. How well are you controlling the writing? Do you stop at eight?"
"I'm afraid not."
He shook his head.
I spent the day at work obsessed by the need to write for myself without stirring stress, without further unbalancing my brain’s chemistry. Every time I thought about my mother's chemotherapy, I'd take a walk around the office, interrupting others at work. I also called Jess at least twenty times that day.
At five I called my parents. Mother answered the phone and said the chemo had been fine, that she was fine. But I knew how good an actress she was and asked to speak to my father.
He said she was tired and still in some pain — from surgery, not chemo — but that basically she was fine. He also said she was due for a heart checkup in the morning.
I felt pretty good about recent events and during a dinner of chicken, rice and salad, I devised a scheme to switch my circadian rhythm and put my wakefulness to work. That evening, I took the first ten milligrams of Valium at six-fifteen and set the alarm for four A.M. The last time I looked at the clock, it was closing on one in the morning.
In the car heading west to the office at four-twenty, the street was deserted. Signs in English and Spanish were stage-lit darkly. Shadowed storefronts stood like cardboard cutouts in the orange-colored light from street lamps.
Framed in the windshield, the moon beckoned me onwards, its voluptuous fullness brilliant against the night's navy matting. It seemed almost within fingertip reach. The rearview mirror reflected the fiery ball of the rising sun. The juxtaposition of night meeting day in a single screen of vision mesmerized me.
I overshot the office by miles. The scene reversed was just as compelling.
In bed that night, I stared at the crack in the ceiling, willing sleep to come. It had been too long a day not to be asleep by eleven.
Ten days later, I was still trying for lights out at midnight to get enough sleep so I could wake up at four. Dr. Marv Simon told me to stop.
That night, behind closed eyelids, I saw the dawn-sun arcing. The cold moon entered its path, floating faster on its course, knocking the sun from view.
Depression couldn’t be far away.
***************************************************************************
Journal Entry February 14, 1983
Some Valentine's Day. Mother had a "minor" heart attack.
She'll be okay, Daddy-O said.
She doesn't want her children to come down.
She always hides her pain, she who absorbs so much pain from her three children.
Compared to Mother's list, my lithium-induced shakes and mosquitoes are minor disturbances.
Move over, Job.















CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE










Lithium bridled my second cycle of manic-depression, curbing my run through emotional extremes. My gratitude for this safety spilled into most of my conversations. I wouldn’t lose myself again. That horror still made me shudder, and deep inside me, fear of repetition put me in a state of red alert. Now and then fear for my parents made itself known, everything inside me stopping, even during conversations. I thought about how I’d feel without the protection of lithium, and would have knelt down in front of the mighty bottle had I not been in bed.
Perhaps two weeks after I had returned to lithium, I began to swing between excitement and sorrow without abrupt flights, without sudden drops. My moods became more positive than negative once they were balanced by four to six hours of sleep, not the one or two or three that had peppered my pre-medicated nights.
* * *
Anxiety hummed a warning now and then, it never registered alarm. And this time, the side effects of lithium were minimal: minimal mosquitoes, minimal tremors; there was no nausea.
Through the weeks and by degrees, hypomania passed into easily aroused ire. In the ending of August 1983, depression descended on the tail of an anger I couldn’t control. But this fact didn’t scare me. It wasn’t me, it was disorder by the hand of bipolar disease. It would be over by September or October.
Time passed. At my typewriter, at work or in bed, I had no problem. There
was no need to use up energy on pretense. I couldn’t find comfort in my other conscious hours unless I was writing to help people avoid this hell on earth. It was increasingly more difficult to leash the anger wild inside me. Friends felt its bite, as did colleagues. I never meant any of it. I was mortified, but there it was. It didn’t matter that I apologized. I couldn’t forget that I’d snap without cause. Fear was the worst to ride. It still threw me. It was fear that I couldn’t bear.
Some people told me to “snap out of it” when I’d decline their invitations.
And then I was in purgatory. People didn’t seem to see the blackness that enveloped me, suffocated me, squeezed me dry. I went to bed when not at work, laid low in melancholia and the soft rock of endless internal torment, not endless enough sleep.
There was no joy, no despair, only the spare knowledge that I was trapped in an emotion I neither sought nor controlled. I didn’t dare work on Journey. The few times I’d tried, nothing came out on paper, not even the weather. I couldn’t depend on the artist in me to feed me that wondrous light and warmth that bathed me as I wrote to save others from my fate. I’d known that warmth and meaningful purpose while earning the only paycheck that I loved working for, advising Seventeen readers by responding to their letters by letter and in a monthly column.
I checked everything I experienced that raised anxiety with my psychiatrist, family and friends. How could I ever again trust myself? There was no way out of this valley, this underground.
I smoked pot, ate pizza, slice ‘n back chocolate chip cookies and fudge. Every waking hour at home I watched TV, a voyeur of universal trauma. Five days a week I operated by rote at the office. And Susan was there, should fear or whatever else overwhelm me within the yellow cinder block walls of corporate headquarters.
* * *
I faced Journey again in October — I was too low to get high on writing; my passion to write stirred.
Each word was a struggle. Each sentence was as lifeless as the jockey in my steeplechase painting.
I never did fix him. In fact, I’d forgotten about him. I went to the painting over the mantelpiece and mentally tried to change his face. That jockey still looked like me.
I went to bed and watched TV.
At the office, politics, deadlines and the pettiness of people crowded my tightrope with conflict.
I could do nothing about my parents’ cancer, but I could do something about work. I could quit. Walk away. Live on savings until something else came along. And finish my book.
* * *
Christmas with my parents relieved the strain of my career and heart. But as soon as I was sure that they were as healthy as they claimed to be, I needed to leave — even in Florida my spirit was mean. I was in no condition to be with people, especially those I loved. What lived inside me burst into rage at the slightest provocation. These unexpected and uncontrollable overreactions sickened me. Nothing was positive about me anymore.
In February, an encounter with a product manager sent me back to my office where I began a letter of resignation.
“What are you up in arms about?” Susan asked from the doorway of my office.
“I’ve had it.”
She stepped inside and closed the door. “What happened?”
“Your fellow product managers hit a new low — I just found three of them in the conference room, standing around the new writer, who was crying hysterically. They love intimidation too much. I’m getting out.”
“You’ve stuck it out this long — “
”I would’ve left two summers ago if madness hadn’t changed my mind.”
“You’ve a safe place for your career here. Why jeopardize that?”
“Because life is tough enough without having to deal with unnecessary problems, not to mention people more interested in dollars than sense.”
“If you can’t stand it anymore, then at least wait until you line up something else.”
“Yours is not to reason my reasons.”
“Patricia, why not save the letter and check the Sunday Trib. And keep laughing on the way to the bank until you find something else.”
“Is that what you’re doing, Susan?” I raised my eyes to hers and held them there as I said, “You don’t believe they’ll keep you now that your product’s been dropped, do you?”
“They said they were.” She shrugged and looked at the covers of the monthly catalogue of promotions and new products that took a lot of my time. They were bright spots of color in sterile space; working with models and photographers almost compensated for dealing with the money-men.
“Rumor has it that they’re letting you go.”
“Patricia, who’d you hear that from?” Her lips compressed until a white line ringed them.
“Geraldo. He hears the dirt as it’s swept under the rug.”
She drew a chair to the desk and sat down. “I’m going to sit tight and wait . . . and look for a new employer.”
“Why don’t you pound on your boss’ door and demand to know your status?”
“This is no time for confrontation,” she replied quietly.
“For you, maybe not. But I’m hanging up this typewriter. Your gang has no respect for anyone or thing but money. They make what ails me worse. I have to get out now. Life has too many other negatives that I can’t avoid.” I was trembling inside and out.
“Call a few headhunters first.”
“What makes you so practical?”
“I’m hardhearted business, not hot-headed artist.”
I tore the letter out of the machine and ripped it in half. “I’ll write a better one next time. We haven’t gotten together after work in ages. What about tonight?”
“I’m seeing Phil. Every night, it would seem.”
“How serious have you guys become?”
“My closets hold more of his clothes than his do, but we don’t discuss it.”
“His clothes, your closets?” I grinned at her.
“Yes, we’re never at his place.”
“A similar thing happened to me in 1971.”
* * *
I contacted three employment recruiters and set up appointments. I never again wanted to supervise anyone but myself. No agency had anything now, but my field was promising, they said.
That action opened one trap.
Jake called Thursday about seven and came over. He stumbled over his words. He stumbled over his feet, lurching about in an attempt to grab me and lead me to the bedroom.
“Are you capable of driving, Jake?”
“Sure. I’ll have that vodka on ice now, thanks.”
“You’re leaving.” I turned him to face the door and gave him a shove. “Out. And don’t ever show up here in this condition again.”
He was all hands, all over me.
“Get out of here,” I said coldly, shoving him away. “And call me from the car — I want to know that you’ve reached whatever destination you aim at. I hope it’s home. You sure don’t need another drink.”
He left.
* * *
By June 1983, I’d sent my resume to every feasible box number and never received one reply. I’d met several recruiters, each said something would open up.
One of them called about a job I wanted. I didn’t get.
I’d never had much trouble finding work before. I began to believe that my bout of psychosis was public knowledge.
“That’s paranoid thinking,” Marv would insist every time I aired this view. I’d change the subject.
Late September, I resigned from work. Don didn’t try to persuade me to stay.
I met Jess for drinks to celebrate my new freedom. A friend of hers joined us at La Bastille and offered me freelance work three days a week at an ad agency in Milwaukee. Despite running into panic every time I entered the expressway, I gratefully accepted.
Heading north to new people, places and work, I was heart-roaring, palm-sweating, dry-mouth scared. I passed the site of my original attack without incident, my grip on the steering wheel eased.
But then the roller coaster reared into view like an attacking grid, cutting the land and the sky into pieces.
Anxiety exploded and shattered concentration. Whirling colored flecks covered everything in sight.
I was swept into spinning speed, suffocating in fear.
The curtain of colors parted at the back-end of a trailer truck. Its towering body blocked the view, walling off the free-floating space, absorbing my shock and my fear.
I hid behind the truck, employing guerilla tactics to combat fear until I could tackle panic head-on. It took five weeks to cut free.
When panic returned to me on the expressway in the first week of 1984, I quit the part-time job in Milwaukee. Concern for my parents, two-city living and sleeting storms were reasonable causes. My need to fight expressway panic had disappeared once I’d mastered it.
Winter lay beyond the bay windows of my home while I worked at my piano desk in the living room behind the green velvet sofa.
The move from the dining room was significant to me: desk, not table; a view with people in it, not brick walls. Jess agreed.
February slunk into March, leaving a trail of heavy wet snow soon puddled by days of sun. I left the typewriter to throw another log on the fire. The phone rang. It was Jake, wanting to know if I wanted company.
I added logs and brightened my complexion, reviewing the past few months.
The first step out of my second depression occurred when I left a weekly paycheck for the uncertainty of freelance. That change had produced near immediate benefit. I enjoyed socializing again. There were things I could like about myself again — I’d conquered the highway.
I never realized how much having negative co-workers had affected me until I worked with positive professionals under similar bottom line deadlines.
But it was more than the removal of negative stress that made the world more bearable. I was lucky. Before dwindling savings could unseat me, I entered a store to look at shoes and left with an ad to write. A few more accounts networked my way.
Life now was tempered with the kind of freedom I’d known while painting in New York, in the years my creative spirit had full-reign.
My peace was beautiful and, as much as I treasured it, I was painfully aware that it was fragile. The protection of medicine blocked the extremes of disorder, that knowledge comfort enough. Unless the threat of cancer entered my thoughts.
If you want to enjoy the good, you’ve got to roll with the bad, as Mithe always said. And I could tolerate almost anything as long as I was writing.
The front gate buzzer sounded.
“You look snappy,” Jake said, dropping a kiss on my nose before taking off a leather jacket.
I kissed his cheek.
For the first time in nearly three years, the only edge I was on was that of full-blooded passion and, grinning, I unexpectedly hugged him.
“You can be a real hard-nose, sometimes,” he said.
“Now, now, Jake. Why would I want to put up with your drunken boorishness?”
“You’re right. You’re lucky. You’re free.”
“I’m lucky, all right, Jake.” My tone said I wasn’t, but I was. My life was in a good place now. “What beverage may I serve you?”
“Seltzer! I know you . . . “
I hugged him again.
* * *
“What do you think, Marv? Am I stable again?” My cigarette shook when I lit it.
Using his forefinger, he brushed his moustache first to the left, then to the right. He combed his goatee. “What do you think?”
“You know I’m not objective.”
“How do you feel?” He laced his fingers and settled his hands on his paunch.
“I don’t want to hide in bed anymore. Actually, I’m working on projects that interest me, so I must be doing okay, right?”
“Actually,” he said and grinned as he leaned forward, his elbows sliding to his knees, “I think we can start withdrawing you from lithium again.”
“Are you sure? I mean, things haven’t been good for very long. Are you sure I’ll be all right?”
He laughed. Loudly. He slapped his knee. “Patricia, I’m proud of you. You’ve come a long way in a few years. We’ll wait until you’re comfortable about going off the lithium again.”
*********************************************************************************************
March 18, 1984

Is it spring? Or losing the stress of commuting
to Milwaukee and having the great luck to win enough accounts to work
freelance, my hours my own again? I’m closer to being me again than I’ve been since this nightmare began.







CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX










"Mother! We just talked the night before last!"
"I know honey, but I wanted to tell you myself . . . "
"No! Oh no, Mithe, Mither . . . " My reservoir of positive feeling emptied so fast that I choked.
"I'm going into the hospital for a few tests in the morning."
"Why?"
"A faint shadow in my lung showed up in the CAT scan. They almost missed it!"
"It can't be back!" I slumped over the typewriter, still sitting at my desk, still holding the phone.
"It's a little spot, darling. Nothing worth getting excited about. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm okay — how's Dad?"
“Want to talk to him?”
"How bad is it, really?” I asked when he said hi. “And you? You're telling me the truth, that at least you're spotless?"
"Yes, Patchey, I am fine, and we'll find out about your mother next week when the tests come in." His voice went from the warmth of his teasing to life-as-usual, but it edged with warning when he added, "Patricka, are you still on lithium?"
"Yes. Lucky, hunh?"
"Stick with it, and don't forget to eat right and sleep. And don't worry. Your mother and I have gotten pretty good at beating cancer."
I wandered from room to room, ending up in the bedroom where, as though cued, the phone rang. It was my sister-in-law.
"The prognosis is good," Cindy insisted.
"But she can't take chemo, and what will another lung operation do to her heart?"
"One step at a time. Let's find out if she does have cancer before we worry about anything else."
"I don't feel very good about this." I readied for bed after we hung up.
In a flannel nightshirt, a glass of wine in hand, I arrived at the fireplace around two in the morning. I opened the smoke-black glass doors, overwhelmed by its unexpected dank, dark scent. Wind swept through the chimney and sifted the ashes, stirring memories of weekend breakfasts in bed with my parents, logs blazing in their hearth, the snow-charged landscape visible through their windows.
I set a chemical log on the andirons, struck a match and flamed it. It burned bright colors but didn't shed heat. I sat on the floor in front of it, legs crossed, and sipped wine. The log boasted a three-hour burning time. I watched it fall apart, its treated components shooting neon lights into the air. I cried then.
Both sleeves of my nightshirt grew damp. I went to bed. When I woke up, my pillow was damp. In the bathroom and while making coffee, I slid between needling fear and despair. Hot tears brimmed but didn’t spill onto my cheeks.
Mother laughing appeared in my mind, her expression changing to horror, a gaping black hole hovering at her chest, enlarging, deepening, engulfing her as I watched. My fear was in her eyes.
The vision split into shards still reflecting black spots and terror.
Numbness fell before rushing anxiety.
I called Dr. Simon.
"Start the Valium again," he prescribed.
My dear brother Michael phoned. He was coming to Chicago this afternoon on business and invited me to dinner. The day now had direction.
Sometime later, I dressed, exhausted by the effort.
Intermittent dozing killed time till Cindy rang the bell while Michael parked the car.
"Come back to Milwaukee and stay with us until the tests are in."
I packed, called friends and we headed out of Chicago for Milwaukee.
"Patricia, you're a zombie," Cindy declared at dinner.
"It's the Valium . . . I better take the next one now."
"The pain you're feeling is real. Don't drug it — deal with it."
"I need to take it! I can't take my feelings full blast right now. That's why Dr. Simon prescribed it."
"But . . . "
"I'd rather be a zombie than have another panic attack."
"I'm not telling you to stop completely, just cut back enough to dull the pain, not deaden you. You'll feel better."
"I don't want the kids to see me out of control," I whispered.
“We all share this pain. Tears are natural. They're normal."
"This helplessness isn’t normal, these uncontrollable tears."
"Under these circumstances, yes, they are. Skip this pill and take one before you go to sleep and see how it goes tomorrow."
"Maybe tomorrow I can cut back."
After three hours in Milwaukee, I borrowed Cindy’s typewriter. Writing obliterated the meaning of cancer. After three days in Milwaukee, I stopped taking Valium except to bring on sleep.
Six days later, we gathered by the phone while Michael spoke to our father. The spot in Mother's lung was cancer. There would be no surgery, and tomorrow, she would start a new chemotherapy drug developed for people with heart conditions.
Laughter came to the dinner table that night, ringing high notes that reached hysteria within me, so great was relief that Mother escaped surgery.
I went back to Chicago in the morning, dropped my suitcase in the bedroom, returning to the living room, glass and bottle of seltzer in hand.
The dark green of the walls and the sweep of floor-to-ceiling curtains fostered in me the kind of peace found deep in a forest, a quiescence of mind and emotion, my Sherwood Forest. Only I hadn't felt like Robin Hood since the summer of 1981.
Sometime later, a client called, asking about the current ad, mentioning a new project. We arranged to meet at four the next day.
Galvanized by the conversation, I built a fire in the grate, turned on the radio to classical music and finalized the copy. Satisfied, I returned to Journey, read the last page written and stopped, tranquility decomposing. Gazing out the window, I lit a cigarette. Without thinking about it, I shut off the typewriter, grabbed my keys and hurried to the parking lot.
I drove to the Anti-Cruelty Society.
In the kennel, barking, whining, crying dogs barraged me. I wanted to take every animal there home, change their misery to joy. Shaking my head at the impossibility, I stooped in front of the first cage in line, captivated by the puppy within, small, white and eager. Her dark eyes were bright, her pink tongue a furious flag furrowing through wire caging to lap my hand, her compact, cottony body an ecstatic wriggle. She was adorable, but she was only six months old, she was white, and she was a Cock-A-Poo the card on her cage said. She would always be small. White dogs tended to develop pink-rimmed eyes; small dogs made me feel awkward; puppies were home-wreckers till trained, which took too much time. The card also said her name was Tinker, the name of my four-footed childhood companion.
This little Tinker's response to me had been so spontaneously loving that I briefly entertained the notion of reincarnation, half of me believing that my old Tinker’s spirit had entered her.
She cried when I walked away, but I straightened my shoulders and followed the cement path between the cages. I came upon a two-year-old male of good size, and good looks. Part setter, mostly Airedale, he had wide-set large dark eyes, soft floppy ears and a rusty coarse coat saddled in black, black marking his muzzle, eyes and ears. He suited my image of Watcher, the dog I'd wanted when manic.
But handsome almost yanked my arm out of the socket in pursuit of everything in the exercise yard but me. Disappointed, I returned him and walked back up the long cement aisle, trying to shut out the pleas of those I was leaving behind.
Near the exit, a blue-coated handler held the little white dog who had first caught my eye. I skirted the two, but not fast enough. The puppy rocketed from the arms that held her and flung herself at me, forcing me to grab her as she placed a paw on either side of my neck and covered my face with kisses. "Maybe I should take this one for a walk," I said.
Unlike the self-aggrandizing male who had dragged me to places I’d preferred not to go, this puppy left my side only to bring me treasures: a twig, a leaf, a fragment of rubber that could have been a blue ball. She pried loose my laughter, evoked tender feelings. She wasn't Watcher, but she won me with love.
Reluctant to part with her, even for paperwork, I gave her back to the handler. The puppy was mine for thirty-five dollars, which included spaying and a red plastic collar and leash. I collected pamphlets on care and training and then I collected the puppy, taking her to the pet store for food and toys before taking her home.
In the backyard, she raced around the brick patio, snuffling and whuffing in delight, racing back to me, tearing through overgrown flowerbeds. To my astonishment, she soared over the stone wall that walled the fish pond and sailed into its accumulated rain, water and muck. She was coated in mud and slime; twigs and leaves clung to her coat.
I carried her upstairs at arms’ length and deposited her in the bathroom sink. Balsam and pine replaced the stink of the swamp and I sighed with relief. After her dinner and a walk, I returned to the typewriter.
Rushing paws raced the living room length. Toys squeaked and thudded.
When Jess called, I told her about my new roommate and turned to watch the puppy (I couldn't think of her as Tinker). Thirty feet away, at the entrance to the dining room, the little dog bunched her body then launched herself into a race toward me.
She flew like a fur torpedo over the coffee table to the back of the tuxedo sleep-couch, and covered my face with kisses.
"Jess! She just jumped a barrier that bigger dogs wouldn't try! You've got to meet her!"
When Jess and I said goodby, the name for my new companion arrived: C.B. Flyer. The initials stood for the given names of my parents, Clarence and Blanche.
I covered the rugs with opened trash bags during the interminable two weeks of housebreaking, the marks of her claims on my territory sickening invasions.
Not long after I'd fall asleep, Flyer would wake me and want to play.
Just as I'd form an important thought, Flyer would demand attention.
She filled every space, crowding me, disrupting the even pitch I was used to, and craved. Several times I'd reach the point of taking her back to the pound, but she'd give me a look or a kiss or a toy and the thought of parting became unthinkable.
Life wasn't my own anymore with the little white whirlwind ensconced in my home, endearing and infuriating and exhausting.
Every morning I rushed to dress to take Flyer out before her next mistake.
Every two hours, whatever the weather, I was outside with the puppy, exercising in spite of myself, the vigil over cancer continuing.
My brother Michael came down for an overnight to help me with Flyer, giving me time for solid sleep, renewing me. It wasn’t long after Michael’s visit that Flyer understood that my home was her home; the hefty bags came off the rugs.
Flyer was a good distraction, a constant source of love and laughter. She learned to sit and lie down and we worked on the command to stay.
My feelings went undercover. I faced the typewriter between walks, composing ads and the path of my madness, the book growing as I added hypomania and the new inroad of depression. I added to the title: Journey Through Psychosis and Beyond.
Flyer learned to come, to heel. She finally learned to stay.
My mother was tolerating the new treatment, which neither reduced nor increased her cancer.
In play with Flyer, I recaptured a kind of joy. My freelance business was good, but not good enough to pay my medical bills, lucky me that my parents could pay them. Lucky me that I paid cash for half of my Victorian condo, keeping mortgage payments to four hundred bucks a month.
May warmed the earth. Winter clothes went into storage and summer ones went to the cleaners. I pulled strips of putty from the windows and opened the house to fresh air. Spring light illuminated my fingers on the keyboard. An ad was due at five.
The red message light on my answering machine was blinking when I got home. Fear took my breath until I heard my father's message. He sounded calm. And he'd called after five, his time. I called him back but no one answered. I lost the glow lit by the client's approval, and I could not respond to Flyer.
I called Milwaukee.
"Mother is in the hospital," Michael said in a voice paced to steady and calm. "She's in isolation in an intensive care unit."
"Why?" Flyer jumped onto my lap, whimpering, slathering my face with kisses.
"The chemo nearly wiped out her white blood cells."
"What does that mean?"
"She has no immune system right now. A cold could be fatal, which is why they put her in isolation. But everything's under control and you're not to worry! Got that?"
A low white blood count didn't sound that threatening. "How long must she stay in there?" I wound the telephone cord around a finger. Flyer thought I was playing a new game. I pushed her away.
"A few weeks. It depends on how fast she responds to treatment. Dad's at the hospital day and night, but I know he wants to — "
"He left a message."
"He'll get back to you, but here's a number where you can reach him."
"How's he doing?" I asked when Michael stopped dictating.
"He sounds okay. Everything's under control Patricia, so just make sure you are, too."
The moment we hung up, Flyer batted me catlike with a paw, leaping off my lap to bring me a bone. When I didn't throw it, she brought me a frog, and then a stuffed bear, sitting beside them, her bark a shrill demand when I didn't respond.
I stared back at her.
Ears up, head cocked to the side, tongue bright in her open mouth, she watched me, stomping the floor with her sweet little paws, impatient for play.
I smiled and tossed the bear.
After her dinner and a walk, I retreated to my bed. Mother's condition was temporary — that's what Michael had said, and I had no reason to doubt him. But I couldn't shake the desperate fear that her cancer would run wild without chemo.
Flyer piled toys on the bed. I hugged her. She leaned into my chest, resting her head on my shoulder, seeming content, the steady fast thud of her heart soothing the irregular beat of mine.
My father and I spoke the next afternoon. He sounded tired, each word he uttered was strained. Intravenous food and antibiotics were already having a positive effect on my mother, but she was a long way from being discharged. He refused my offer to fly down. Her collapse was no longer life threatening.
His news didn't alter my apathy. If not for Flyer, I never would have left my bed.
I routed our walks past the Fudge Pot on Wells.
My sugar consumption reached the level of my first depression. It surpassed it.
* * *
I wished I hadn't accepted Jake's invitation. I wanted to be alone. He kept nagging me, asking what was wrong. He kept putting his hands on me. He turned my face to his and at last said: "Your mother?"
Tears suddenly soothed my dry, burning eyes. I covered them with my hands. I hadn't cried since March, when Mithe had re-entered the hospital. It was August now.
"Patricia?" The word rang with boardroom authority. He stood, feet apart, arms folded against his chest, giving the impression that his stance wouldn't change until he attained what he wanted. "Tell me."
I looked at him then, but I was consumed by feelings: bleak, bitter, ungiving, and scared.
He strode around the coffee table and sat beside me, taking my hand loosely in his. "You'll feel better if you talk about it."
"Since when do you care about anything other than sex," I snarled, yanking my hand from his.
"Tell me." He touched my hair, how dare he!
He tried to kiss me. I shoved him away.
He picked up the brass railroad spike from the coffee table, running his fingers along its length, his shoulders hunched, his head bent. He replaced the paperweight and faced me. "In three years, you've never refused to answer a question."
"There's no love, honor and obey between us! In with a bang, out with a whimper."
"How's your mother doing?" His tone was a neutral force that didn't neutralize my anger.
I jumped up and paced a line parallel to the front door, stopped, whirled around. "I don't know! No one knows! How in hell can she get better if they can't treat her?" Another gush of tears soothed my eyes.
"That's rough. I'm sorry." He reached me in the middle of the living room, gathered me into his arms, patted me on the back with awkward taps.
Anger and fear made me back away.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, wiped my tears. "I appreciate your concern." I focused on his mouth. "But there's nothing you can do. Nothing." I faced his eyes. "I don't wish to be rude, but I want you to leave."
"You need TLC right now, that's what you need," he said, coming toward me.
"NO! That's the last thing I want. I need to be left alone."
"Take it easy. I'll leave, but I'll be back! You'll feel differently soon. I just think you'd feel better if — "
"Get out." Flyer came between us, looking at him, at me, growling, whimpering, her voice menacing, teeth bared when he took another step toward me.
Thankfully, he left.
I never sought to replace him. I'd lost my passion for him, for sex itself. His intermittent calls were irritants after which I'd race to the Fudge Pot. Biting into rich, sugared texture, I'd be comforted by his persistence.
I don’t know when I started writing a note that would dissolve any sense of guilt that anyone who cared about me might feel after I was dead.
Pills were the easiest way out. I got vertigo too easily for courage to get me to the edge of a roof so that I could jump. Every day I wrote a new version, never achieving success. But I would get it right. I’d get it right soon. I needed to escape the jail my mind, heart and spirit had become. I needed to escape from watching my mother fail.




*******************************************************************
Journal Entry March 18, 1984




Reeking of self-pity. No: Loathing. But, aside
from that, and cancer and lithium, all is well.















CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN










The heat in mid-September was suffocating, which slowed me down, but not Flyer.
Cigarette smoke thickened the air stroked by the ceiling fans in my living room.
Music was the harmony of the words I wrote; paintings were the conjurings of written pages.
I spent time on freelance work and working on the book, watching Dynasty, other soap operas and mysteries; I spent time with Flyer, hiking Lincoln Park in reasonable weather, enjoying her joyous curiosity. Every night I worked on my note of absolution. It was more challenging than the sales copy I had to come up with. More frustrating. I began to work on it once or twice a week, but the pain of continuing failure accompanied self-awareness like a low-grade fever.
Self-awareness disappeared into the beauty of the yellowing sky of early evening, enriching and intensifying the greens of nature, gilding the tree trunks, frames for earthen shadings of bark. I loved the park in last light, the muted quality of other dwellers' calls, the lap of Lake Michigan on sand. I was in the country there, free in a space neutral and honest, a place like the berth of my childhood.
But even there reality intruded, sending me home, my mind iced behind closed doors. Locked doors. I wasn't tempted by keyholes. I knew the pain they contained.
Six years ago, I cut romantic love from my heart. Six years ago, cancer became a household word. Three years ago, I lost my mind. But madness gave me a passion for words.
As long as I could write, I'd be fine.
The buzzer sounded.
Flyer launched into voice.
I went to the window and saw Jess at the gate. She waved. Furious with myself for having been seen, I pressed enter on the intercom.
"Hi, buddy," she said, trudging up the stairs, her curls stepping to a faster rhythm.
"Hi," I said, slumped against the door.
"Haven't seen much of you lately. Been busy?" Her gaiety trespassed before she crossed the threshold.
"Deadline in the morning."
"How about a break?" Her nervous, upbeat energy was an unwelcome reminder of an emotion I couldn’t summon.
"I . . . Come in — only for a few minutes. Drink?"
"I'd love a beer — it's a beast out there!" She mopped her face, greeted Flyer and followed me into the kitchen.
I handed her a glass and a cold can of beer.
"What've you been up to?"
"What do you mean by that?"
She stepped back in surprise. Flyer yelped and scuttered away. "What have you been doing? How have you been occupying time? A simple question deserving a simple answer." She opened the can and poured as I put dishes from the sink into the dishwasher, my back facing her. "Has holing up decivilized you?"
"The weather is uncivilized," I snapped, drying my hands, avoiding eye contact, ushering her to the living room, fuming in silence.
"It couldn't be worse," she agreed, settling in the channel-back chair. "So what's the news? Nothing urgent, I assume, or you'd have called."
"Everything is urgent, or have you forgotten?" I regained my seat at the desk, angling my chair to face her.
"But your mother's getting better — isn't she?"
"She is; the cancer isn't."
"But it's not growing. Is it?"
"Not according to last week's scan. But that's old news."
"Where's that positivity you used to have? She's going to make it. Your parents are fighters, they're survivors. You are, too."
"I may be surviving, but not as a fighter." Gathering glass and seltzer from the desk, I went to the green velvet sofa.
"Yes you are a fighter. Or you used to be. What is going on?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." I lit a cigarette, my smoke competing with hers for space.
"But you're working." She looked at the typewriter. "And you're working on the book, aren't you?"
"That's how I'm surviving."
"That's fighting." Her tone gave no ground to rebuttal. "What's your menu like these days?"
"Pretty much pizza."
"What happened to the right foods?"
"They didn't save me."
"They helped though. Get up. We're going to the store for protein, fruits and vegetables."
"I have work to do. And that stuff isn't the answer. I won't waste time on it."
"Are you sleeping okay?"
"Are you gathering material for a play?"
"Patricia."
"I'm sorry, okay? Just stop nagging. I'm fine."
"When your mother says she's fine, you get in a lather."
"We're not talking about my mother. Look. I'm not cruising through mania nor dragging toward death. There's nothing wrong." Flyer whuffed and leaped to my lap, digging her head under my arm. "There's nothing much right, either."
"But you're writing." Her eagerness was repellent.
"I was writing when you — "
"Have you heard from Jake?"
"He calls once in a while, but I don't want to see him. My sex drive is dead. Or stalled — Carnal passion never quit before. Why now?"
"Maybe you're over him."
"Over sex — as opposed to oversexed, you mean. Maybe it's age. Maybe forty-one's too old for passion."
"Not for you, old buddy."
We laughed, not heartily, but enough to lighten tensions.
"Maybe it's passion for writing that consumes you now. You couldn't write when you were depressed. And you are waiting for cancer to clear your parents. You can't expect full steam ahead and all systems go — your parents were healthy during your first year of disorder."
"Right or wrong, I'll buy that explanation. Thanks, pal. So what's your status?"
She seemed tired, her eyes looked glassy, not bright. Her energy seemed rooted in nervous agitation, not fitness. She'd been an intrusion until contrition warmed my heart to her.
"I'm not seeing Stan these days. I won’t talk to him if he calls. He won't budge on the marriage issue." Anger and something else I couldn't discern came into her eyes.
"Is the break temporary?"
"No. Maybe. I don't know. I just can't stand status quo anymore." She sighed and shook her head until her curls swept across her face. "I'm not seeing Marv anymore, either." That statement sounded distressed.
"I thought panic still attacked you."
"It's better, but — "
"What happened?"
"Nothing, really. I guess I've changed. Marv no longer works for me anymore. Maybe I just need a vacation, or . . . "
"Are you running away from yourself?"
"No! That's not it! I just need a different approach to the past now . . . Yes. I've just gone as far as I can go with Stan, and with Marv," she muttered, shifting to ask brightly, "How goes it with you and Marv?"
"The same old time, talk and lithium, only our talking has been reduced to the weather and his homilies, bromides and promises of hope for better days — he's a bulldog when it comes to the formulation of goals and clinging to the bright side." I snorted.
"Every side has one," she quipped. "Goals must be Marv's latest shtick, though they sure don't feature in Stan's life where I'm concerned."
"What about the nightmares?"
"Upon occasion. At least Marv gave me a line on them — not strong enough to haul me out of them completely, though."
"Does the break with Stan have anything to do with them?"
"They were old, too-familiar territory long before Stan entered my life. No. And I wasn't getting any closer to scraping the barrel with Marv than I was with Stan. No. It's up to me."
"You're a lot further along on that route to peaceful dreams than you were before Marv. Why don't you find another psychiatrist?"
"Not now. I need peace now. And that, my friend, is something I will find on my own — let's get back to you and Marv."
"What kind of goals can I make? I've no control over the acceptance or rejection of clients, of publishers, or of cancer. Goals, shmoals."
"Marv can't seem to get a grip on any way of life that isn't driven by the almighty dollar and the clock . . . He's too busy trying to get a grip on me, period."
"Jessie, is that why — " My ears burnred with the hot blood of shock.
She twisted a strand of hair tightly about her finger. "No. Really. Suffice it to say that Marv and I have irreconcilable differences. But he helps you, doesn't he?"
"Actually, I'm beginning to believe he's a waste of time and money. Nothing's going to change until cancer leaves my parents alone. Or . . . "
"Parents rarely outlive their children, Patricia." She picked up a tennis ball and threw it to Flyer. We watched the dog retrieve it. "The tragedy is when children die first. That's why you fought suicide, remember? And your mother's sixty-five, your father seventy-five. If cancer does shorten their lives, you can, and will, go on. You are your parents' child, you know." Her expression turned from serious to sad. "You know how much I dread seeing my parents once a year at Christmas."
"Want to trade places?"
"We know too much about the dark side, you and I."
"But not enough about outer space, the supernatural . . . "
"You were definitely supernatural for a while there."
"He was real!" Before the imprint of my voice faded, I realized what I'd said and laughed happily.
Jessie’s laughter joined mine and it was awhile before our eyes connected again. It had been awhile since I had laughed like that. “I better leave you to that deadline. Thanks for the beer, buddy. It was good to see you."
"I'm glad you stopped by." I put out a cigarette and stood.
Steamy days slid into cooling nights. I began adding sweaters, and then jackets to walk Flyer. I began donning cotton turtlenecks before slipping on sweaters.
Jess came over to say she'd met an Englishman in a bar. He played the violin, not a Perlman nor a Menuhin, but gifted, and he was intellectually stimulating, with wit to match. The pain of Stan's rejection receded as her dinners with Albert Liddlegate increased.
She stopped coming by as often. We rarely met for drinks.
After Albert Liddlegate and Jess had consumated their relationship, he revealed that he had a wife and small son living in London; they hadn't wanted to move to Chicago with him. "At least you can see him on weekends," I told Jess when she confided this news.
The night I agreed to meet her for dinner at Eduardo's, it was raining hard and cold. I drove the two and a half blocks to the restaurant.
"Have you heard from the married Englishman again?" I still didn't know the details of her last dinner with him, or of the last call from Stan Goodman. I realized I really didn't care. How far apart we'd grown.
"Yes. I won't see him, though, no matter how often he calls, no matter how many flowers he sends. Had he been honest about his marriage, had he been up-front like your Jake was, who knows. But deceit is worse than adultery in my book."
"Amen, sister!"
"I thought I was too perceptive to be taken in."
Her honesty inspired the warmth of caring still lurking inside me. "Ease up on yourself. Married or not, the interesting ones never have that look of rutted resignation, and they rarely turn into doormats. So what now? Feast? Or famine?"
"I haven't met a man worth a second date since I broke up with Stan. It's too easy to think of Albert as single with his wife across the ocean. But you know how I feel about married men."
"Don't remind me."
"Shit. I'm already involved, aren't I?"
Gloating, I ordered dinner after she spoke her preference to the waiter.
"Nothing wrong with romantic flirtation," I encouraged. "And the strings are his, not yours, or has Stan changed your mind about strings?"
"Your logic could defy scruples."
"Does that mean the last communique with Stan was unsuccessful?" Her hurt again aroused my empathy.
"It was a stand-off, not a stand-by. Buddy, do you know any truly happily married people?"
"Do you know any truly happy people?" I thought about what I’d just said, drawn away from my reaction to what Jess had to say.
"Given that happiness is a rare human condition, how many marriages do you suppose are good?"
"Those with tolerance, humor and caring, feats of wonder for those bound by daily ties, I suspect. Feats you and I share, as do my parents."
"You’re right, and I will never be in a situation that requires financial dependency."
"I will never enter a relationship with a man who requires my love,” I declared. “But I wouldn't mind financial help."
"Like being a mistress?"
"Jake throws twenty dollar bills at the valets who park his car — "
"You'd really take money from Jake?"
"I'd rather do that than take a full-time job cut off from Journey, the one thing that makes life tolerable."
"Then get a job writing."
"I can't . . . I can't go back to deadlines, politics and back stabs. I don't know how you can still do it."
"It takes money to live and I've Sundays to work on the play."
"Jake could solve my money problem."
"When did you start seeing him again?"
"I haven't, but he still calls."
"If you took money from him, he'd own you!"
"A lesser prison than life without Journey."
"You'd be independent if you took a job." Hostility rose again between us.
"The book's the only thing that keeps me going."
"You've got your parents, your brother, me, the Fly . . . working is a tradeoff! You can't live in this world without paying dues."
"I've been paying dues nearly twenty years, and, should you forget, brain chemical imbalance has raised the ante."
The glint in her eyes softened briefly before sharpening again.
"I can't seem to generate enough income these days and my savings won’t last much longer."
"Your parents have money, you have your own money, you don't really need a job,” she asserted. “And most assuredly you don't need to take money from Jake. You've been waking at your own leisure for two years now, making coffee, strolling to the typewriter in your own living room, writing your heart out, all at your own pace. Who are you to complain?"
"Why do you sound so bitter?" Before she could respond, if indeed she'd planned to, I continued. "My parents may be comfortable, but they have three children and two grandchildren in need of educations. And my trust fund, though it's none of your business, would be depleted before I hit fifty if I started raiding it now. No. There's no reason Jake can't throw some my way." I hadn't been serious about taking money from him when the conversation began, but now I was. And I was having difficulty maintaining civility with the opposition.
Second thoughts on the question of Jake's ownership stilled the roil of anger within me, replacing it with gnawing insecurity.
"Get a part time job in a store. You like fashion."
"That's inspirational,” I said. “Part-time would stretch savings and still leave time to write! Thank you! I feel much better. So. Have you new thoughts on the enticing English though nefarious Albert Liddlegate?"
"If he's persistent long enough, and I don't meet someone else — I don't know."
Vengeance would be mine, I thought, conviction growing that she'd soon eat that moral superiority of hers. How I'd love pointing that fact out to her. I lowered my eyes, hiding my pleasure. "Loneliness and lust can make strange bed partners, and of course, you already know how I feel about married men. But you just stick to your principles, Jess old girl. There's always the chance you'll meet the man of your dreams."
The look she gave me made me cringe. But she deserved it, I silently countered with self-righteous emphasis.
"The choice of suitable suitors is limited," she said finally, her voice strained yet calm. "And what’s rare is the combination of humor and intelligence and sophistication, let alone compassion."
"How true. Too many men view their gender with respect, and women with lust and fear, but not with respect — "
"But you look at men with lust and fear," she said.
"Men aren't what I fear." The cigarette I lit was steady. "I fear myself. I did, even before the messiah — the downside of love made me crazy. Twice, as you well know. Jessie, it's been six years since carnal love has been on my menu." I crushed the cigarette in the ashtray.
"You might change your mind about loving some day."
"My last some day never came."
"I can love with passion, but I can't live with it. I don't want to fight to write on weekends, like I did with Stan."
"A desire so nicely satisfied by a married man."
"I do see how the license removes fear of entrapment, but, it's adultery."
"Wouldn't a wife rather her husband stray with someone who doesn't threaten her marriage? Or is it marriage you're after these days?"
"No, that anomaly was provoked by Stan. But I want love, and I want passion, and I too, fear failure — my own, like you. I'm also afraid of . . ."
"Rejection? The heart of my heart problem, as you know."
"I fear boredom! And invasion, and being revealed as less than I want to seem, should I tell the truth." She was too busy lighting a cigarette to look at me.
"Privacy. Yes. There are sides of me no one should be exposed to — not even me. I can't tolerate myself all day, every day, unless I'm painting pictures with words. What would I do with a husband?"
"Too bad you can't just pull them out of the closet when you want them."
"When are you going to replace Marv?" Our mood changed instantly, the quality of our new silence deepening.
In a soft and measured tone, Jess said, "Not for a while. I need time to assimilate this latest shrinking. But before this head is all gray," she pointed to her hair, her grin back in her eyes and mouth, "I will not only tolerate myself, but, I will like myself! Some day, we'll both live happily ever after, or learn to accept our lot.”





*************************************************************************


I can’t stomach rehashing anything in this journal anymore.







CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT










Goals. Goals. Goals. Marv Simon, MD, spoke of nothing else.
The suffocation of summer seemed worse in his air-conditioned office.
Goals. Goals. Goals.
Autumn entered mid-October, vivid, vital. I still couldn't justify suicide on paper.
Cutting winds fed anger, fanned frustration. Trees lost leaves, exposing naked
limbs and slow-withering ground.
Fuck the bloody future.
The colors of Chagall's wall in the Loop were strong in the morning sun. The air
breezed against me, sharpening my senses.
I walked into Marv's office, the brim of my fedora low on my forehead,
concealment for untended hair.
"Decent day," I said, dropping to the blue tweed couch.
Sinking into the Eames chair, he glanced out the window. "It looks good. So?
What have you decided about the future?"
"You're fired." I started to rise and his hand cut the air in front of me.
"Face the facts, Patricia. You can't head into the future without a plan. You need
concrete — "
"I need to know if my mother's going to be all right!" I jerked my arm from his
grasp and stood, jamming the strap of my purse on my shoulder.
"Sit down!" Rage roared in his voice, reddened his face.
Astonished, I sat.
He yelled at me. He aimed words at every sore exposed by our sessions,
hammering my shell until it cracked and backed-up tears poured through.
"Enough!" I was on my feet again. "You're done with my life, Marv." Fear-spurred
desperation pounded my heart.
He towered above me, his hands fisted, his eyes glaring through glass lenses. "Get hold of yourself. I know you've been slipping away . . . "
I stuck my hand on my hip. "Did your leash break?"
"You've been trying to get me to throw you out of here for months — and don't
think I don't know you've been toying with suicide."
"Either you're a shrink or you’re a career counselor. Get your roles straight, Marv."
His mustache and goatee twined over the press of his lips. Then his fists
unclenched, his mouth relaxed. "Killing yourself isn't the answer," he finally said. "You
haven't been fighting the depression."
"You've never mentioned depression, or are you using goals as a synonym these
days?" Fury stormed me, made my voice harsh.
He was silent and motionless.
"If I'm depressed, then, Marv? You're a whore."
His hand was a slashing blur, knocking my hat off.
I watched it end-over-end and land on the floor across the room, a vulnerable,
inside-out heap. I stalked the fedora, then the door. "Send the final bill," I said, letting
the door slam behind me.
I rode the bus home, my back a straight line, my hat again in place. The junk-food
flab of passengers garbed in discards repulsed me. The bus reeked of poverty, of
breath fouled by rotting teeth and old age; of hopelessness. I shuddered, oppressed by
outrage and shock.
I fled the bus at my corner and went from my door to the typewriter. A tale of
bottoming out emerged beneath keys hit with vicious precision, each page a receipt for
the rage that threatened me, that pushed me through overwhelming of helplessness.
I wrote about the bus people, giving cause for impotence, giving substance to
failure. The fiction expressed what I couldn't face about myself; it was a decompression
chamber for awful revelation.
I directed emotions when I wrote.
When the story reached conclusion, I felt — better wasn't the word. I felt ... Yes. I felt. Not very much, but the essence was so far above the hard core of nothing
that I rose halfway up the ladder footed in the well.
Jess called. We made a date for dinner the next night. I said nothing about Marv
on the phone.
At the restaurant, the eggshell walls and red and white tablecloths were
welcoming, but an imposition on self-control.
"You're hitting the wine pretty hard," Jess said, taking her glass to her lips.
"It won't kill me." I took another sip.
"The lithium limit is two, isn't it?"
"Tell me about Albert."
"He's courting me like a Victorian lover."
"I thought you ordered veal, not canary!" And she'd thought herself so superior to
me when Jake entered my bed in 1980. I sat on the urge to remind her.
"I'm happy. The fact he has a wife in another country still bothers me, but I can't
remember when I've felt so . . . excited and at peace at the same time."
"That's worth celebrating." She was in my fold now, poor once lost sheep, the
goat. But she alone could still make me laugh. She cared about me, she knew the
depths I treaded. She kept her head above water.
The waiter poured the last of the wine into my glass.
"Patricia!"
"I’ve been limited to two drinks a day for four years."
"How do you feel?"
Her question cued my wine-song, the final scene with Marv making desolation
audible. I couldn't look at her. I lit one cigarette after another, smoking with one hand,
drinking with the other, loosening my arid tongue. I looked at her patiently waiting for
me to respond. I looked away from her and said, "There was no room for thinking
about what I was feeling. I never considered depression — I was able to write
most of the time. As you earlier remarked, I couldn’t write the last time I was
depressed." I bent my head to the wine. "I thought I was through with mental
disorder, that I was protected by lithium, that. . . Jess, suicide was my goal. I never
thought about anything else. I never considered consequences . . . Oh Jess. Suicide
was my goal. But I couldn't write the note right."
I couldn't face her eyes. Wine moistened my mouth, rolled on my tongue; my
throat closed around it. I choked.
"You've been thinking about killing yourself?"
"For a while, I guess I have. But I couldn't get the note right, I couldn't work it so
that you and my family would be happy for me and not feel any guilt."
"Oh Patricia. Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped."
"You've been busy, I've been writing, trying to write — you couldn't have helped
me. No one could. But I've just written a story, and the idea of death scares me again.
I must've been crazy to rewrite that note every day. I never once analyzed why I
was writing it."
"You never wrote the note right, Patricia. Do you understand? Something inside
you stopped you from killing yourself. Don't ever forget that."
"I'm scared. How could I be so wrong about myself?"
"The fault is Marv's, not yours. That bastard! You were right to leave him. You're
focused on your mother, not on yourself. Marv fell down on the job. He should've
been helping you protect yourself, not hounding you about goals . . . Patricia, I'm
glad this happened. For selfish reasons, too. You've been so remote, so cold
these last months, I haven't known what to think or do. You jumped on everything
I said."
"I'm sorry." I squeezed her hand. "I never realized . . . I didn't think — I never
analyzed anything. I did what I had to do and wrote as much as I could. And then
I started writing that suicide note. I never asked myself why I was writing it; I never
thought beyond the note, hating myself because I couldn't accept what I wrote."
"Patricia. You're strong. You ran away from Marv rather than take your life. You
saved yourself. Lithium may have helped a little," her moue made me smile, "but you
wanted to take it! Now, this is something to celebrate! Waiter? Your champagne
list, please!" She grinned, then eyed me critically. "Thank you kind sir, but we'll
have two espressos instead." She winked and I nodded, my hands shielding my
tears. "Your future means the deaths of your parents,” she said. “And thanks to
Marv, you became suicidal. That man's guilty of no less than psychic
persecution," she concluded, edging each word with scorn.
"Not to mention prostitution. I called him a whore."
The roar of our laughter turned every head in the room.
My release stopped abruptly. "Jess? If I'd died first, I couldn't, wouldn't lose my
parents."
"But you're all still here! Now listen, you need another doctor. I met a most
charismatic possibility at cocktails with Stan last year. I'll get his number."
"Never thinking about the consequences of suicide was kind of crazy, wasn't it?"
She nodded, then grinned. Our laughter was brief.
The block of ice melted in my chest, tears spilling from my eyes.
"What were you planning to do with Flyer? Or hadn't you gotten that far?"
"Run her up to Milwaukee and ask my brother to keep her for a few days ... How
could I have been so blind? You'd think by now I'd know who — what — I am!" Cigarette smoke knifed my lungs; wine bittered my mouth.
"Mania didn't set you up for a fall this time. You had no warning. Get off your
back on this, and remember it."
"Just knowing my brain's been off balance makes me feel better. I wasn't afraid
of, or for, myself this time, though — or would that be a consolation prize?"
She gave me a sappy smile and shook her head, her curls swirling away from her face
and back again.
"Jess, I've been such a lousy friend. I'm sorry."
"You'll be okay now, buddy. You can't expect to field every curve manic-
depression throws. We'll get you another doc. Hopefully David Allen, the man I told you
about meeting last year."
"He'll have to be screened for goal orientation."
When laughter ebbed, I said, "Marv got physical when I fired him."
"He hurt you?"
"He knocked off my hat." I grinned.
"That IS IT! When I get done with Simon, he'll be lucky to treat neurotic pets. I'd
be the criminal if I let him get away with this, too."
"I did call him a whore, and what do you mean, ‘too?’"
"As I said before, I’m so glad you nailed his hide. He is a whore." She dropped
her eyes and lit a cigarette.
"What happened between you two?"
"He was physical with me, too. Or, he tried to be, oh, sexually, I mean. I never
told you because I thought he was helping you."
"He's twisted. But he helped me for two and a half years. And you for nearly a
year. What the hell got into him?"
"His own life, maybe. But whatever it was, he should lose his license. He's
dangerous."
"I can’t believe you never told me. I would've come screaming to you had roles
been reversed. I’d have warned you about him — it never would have occurred to me
that, as long as he was helping you, my need to talk about my experience with him
would have jeopardized yours."
The next day, she phoned with Dr. Allen's number.
"I'll call him next week."
"Call today!"

"I can't! There's too much to think about. But I know I need a doctor. Maybe next
week.
You're a good buddy, buddy."















CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE










The flight to Florida took off through dusting snow. It was half-empty, easy to forget where I was passage rarely noticed as I edited my book. I was glad that my parents
wanted me to visit. But why?
Relief rose when I saw my mother and father waving at the gate. Relief grew when
we hugged, when we walked to the baggage claim, when we found Flyer and my
suitcase. But in the bright light, changes in my parents since Christmas glared.
My father had lost weight and his tan had yellowed. My mother was heavier than
I'd ever seen her. Her eyes were dull, appearing small within folds of unusually puffed
flesh.
"It's water retention," Mithe said, smiling into my stare, her elegant forefinger
disappearing into her swollen cheek. "Cortisone is notorious for edema, but I look more
like a grandmother now."
I hugged her, hiding my face in her still glorious hair. "How are you feeling?"
"New York was exhausting. Between tests for cancer, we went from one art gallery
to another, and on to the theater and to too many too tempting restaurants. We had a
grand time and we're — is that Flyer's kennel?"
Though tranquilized, Flyer cried when I uncaged her. She was a dervish dancing at
my feet as I tried to leash her, licking the hands my parents extended. On the way to
their home, she hung across my knees in a stupor.
Before unloading the car, we walked with Flyer, all of us dragging our feet.
"Come into my office," my father said as we entered the house. "There's
something I want to tell you."
Something unbearable was wrong with Mother, why else would he choose that
room? "Instead of your office, why not relax on the bed in the guest room while I
unpack?" I entered the pink and white room with cherry-wood furnishings. The scents
and tastes of mania from five years ago activated that horror in memory, which never
quite left me as time dragged me through one year after another.
I rubbed my burning eyes and stubbed my toe on the suitcase. I unzipped it and
flung back the soft flap, madness, cancer and clothes colliding inside me as I sat down
beside it.
My parents stretched out on the bed, hands clasped behind their heads against
pillows, their elbows nearly touching. My father cleared his throat.
"What's up?" What's wrong?
He cleared his throat again, lowering a hand to his mouth, raising it before speaking
again. "I have some news, not very pleasant, but not so terrible, either . . . "
My heart stopped.
"Look at this, Patchey," he said.
He hadn't called me Patchey since I'd switched from Patti to Patricia in 1976, the
year I joined the executive ranks in the creative field.
He slowly slid off the bed. He seemed to move in slow motion as he pulled his shirt
free and lowered his slacks an inch. A short angry scar framed by cloth flamed against
untanned flesh.
Patchey, Patchey, Patchey. My mind closed around the name, and its era.
"See how small this is? It was once a cancerous tumor."
Fear iced me; it took my breath.
I nodded. His voice, when he spoke again, conjured burning wood sounds, and I
was too close and, without a screen, easy prey for misfiring coals.
"I'm fine. The operation was nothing — the doctor did it in his office . . . "
"But?" I brought Flyer into my lap, hiding my face in her coat.
"Your mother and I have total faith in the oncologist in New York. He specializes in
our types of cancer."
I struggled for calm, leaned over Flyer, began taking out garment after garment. "Was it lymphoma?"
"It's hard to believe that lymphoma would dare take another crack at me, but it has.
Now, don't get upset! I'm on a regimen of chemo that will destroy it in six months to a
year. The thing is, Patricka," he tucked in his shirt and returned to the bed, "I need two
injections every other week, one twelve hours after the other. That means spending a
night in the hospital."
My vision blackened.
"Honey," my mother cautioned gently, "if you keep shuffling your clothes around
like that, you'll spend tomorrow at the ironing board."
My tears soaked Flyer's neck; my ears rang. It was difficult to hear.
"After forty-four years of marriage, your father and I have shared just about
everything. It's fitting that we share chemo, too."
"You should be sharing health." Anger dried my eyes.
"We've got that!" My father's rejoinder was too hearty. "It's a matter of degree.
Your mother and I could be bedridden, or confined to wheelchairs. But we're not. We
have the freedom to enjoy life, play golf, travel, go out . . . Believe me, Patchey, we could
have it a lot worse than we do."
"It must be so cozy sharing cancer and chemo . . . Will you be okay when he's in
the hospital, Mithe?"
"I'll be in the other bed in his room."
"For better and for worse." I managed a smile. "So, do you non-invalids have
anything to eat in this house?"
In bed that night, I held onto Flyer, fighting futility, fighting fear. I took something to
make me sleep and awoke with a familiar numbness. Flyer stirred, stretched fore and aft,
and settled on my chest, forepaws astride my neck. I scratched behind her ears, under
her chin. She squirmed with delight, I with worry. The chemo was an exercise of
precaution only. My father had emphasized this, demanding that I acknowledge his
apparent good health. He'd said he and Mother had asked me to visit because they
thought I'd tolerate his news more easily if I could see how healthy he looked, how
strong. They knew how graphic my mind was, and how easily I entered overdrive. They
— Love rushed through me, heating tears of gratitude that fell faster, a flow building into
wrenching sobs, draining me, quieting me, Flyer swabbing my cheeks with her sweet pink
tongue. I lay with Flyer curled against me, moving in and out of a daze.
Flyer wanted breakfast.
I dressed and found my father in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading Barron's.
"Want to walk with me and the Fly?"
We stepped into gliding exchanges of light and shadow telling the compass of
breezes shifting and rolling the clouds.
Flyer stood at the foot of the driveway, mouth parted as if to lap freshened scents,
ears pricked. She looked back at me and when I nodded, she trotted across the street to
the island of sawtooth grass that surrounded the swimming pool and clubhouse. She
dropped into the rough blades, rolling on her back, the movement of her body an ode to
pleasure.
"Weather like this almost makes me like Florida — what time's your golf game?" A
cloud passed the sun and darkened the light around him.
"No golf today," he said quietly, watching Flyer pounce on a palmetto branch three
times her size. She growled and shook her head as she dragged it to him. He thanked
her and threw it. "I'm glad you have her. She's a good companion, even if she barks too
much on a note that's tough to take." He moved toward me, taking my gaze from Flyer to
his face. He looked so tired, my father. And so sad.
His arm rested on my shoulders as we began walking at a pace slow and precise
on the side of the road that circled the island. "There's something else we haven't told
you . . ."
I shook off his arm and whirled around to stand in front of him, my "What?" filling
the air with alarm.
"You know Teddy Eccles . . . " He reached for my hand, clasping it tightly.
Tears suddenly blinded me. A picture of him formed in memory. Bright dark eyes
in a laughing face, hair silvering, slighter of frame and shorter than my father, wit and
mind foil for my father's, their humor at the expense of themselves if anyone, their
conversations intriguing and lively when not about investments. "What about Teddy?"
"He had a little pain six weeks ago and went to the doctor. He has inoperable
cancer . . . " His hold on my hand tightened. "After days of testing, the oncologist offered
him a fifty-fifty chance with treatment."
Thank life it's not you we're talking about. Thank life it's not you, cried my heart.
But Teddy. Not Teddy, confident, dear-hearted Teddy who loved people and challenges.
"What's he going to do?"
"He saw another doctor." He shook his head and put his arm around me. "That
one offered no hope."
I halted mid-step, drawing his eyes. "Which one does Teddy believe?" My sudden
dread was buffered by a sense of unreality, thoughts filtering through clouds like the sun
through those cushioning the sky, the day too idyllic for this awful tiding.
Again he shook his head, a slow side to side. He dropped his arm from my
shoulders. He stopped walking and turned to me. "Teddy discharged himself from the
hospital. He said he wanted to die with his family at home." My father’s broken
composure was primal and painful.
I rubbed my bare arms and shivered, slipping my arm around his waist, urging him
forward. Flyer, dragging the palmetto, tagged beside us, not intruding.
"I don't understand how an intelligent man can refuse to explore every avenue."
Frustration roughed his voice. "I tried to badger him into going to the cancer center in
New York, but he won't budge. He says he knows he's going to die soon and that he
wants to face death in comfort with people he loves."
An image of my father, not Teddy, awaiting death in his bed filled me with fright.
"He's so much younger than you are. He can't give up!"
"Cancer doesn't belong to any one age group, Patchey. You know that." His
chiding was kind. And his use of his old nickname for me added to the poignant moment.
I knew that cancer traveled faster through younger cells, and it appeared that he
knew that I did, too. "How's Ruth handling it? How can she handle it? How can any of
them?" I couldn't bear the corollaries.
He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. He said, "She's holding her own."
"Can I see him? Should I see him?" Oh, Teddy, Ruth . . . “
"Even I haven't seen him for a while, but we talk on the phone at least once a day."
The tremor in my father’s voice was a new sound to me. He walked on.
Tears rolled from my eyes, perhaps from his. I stared at his back as Teddy's vitality
dimmed in memory, no match for the death that tracked him, the closing distance
diverting death from traps already set for my parents.
I grabbed the branch from Flyer, and with both hands, I tried to break it in two, the
dog leaping noisily for her palmetto, excited by the game. The bough bent, it wouldn't
break, the thrashing leaves a cacophony in the refrain of Flyer's sharp song. I threw the
injured brush down and stroked my father's arm, recaptured his hand.
He looked at me, sorrow deep in his eyes. "I've told you about Teddy for more than
one reason: First, you have a right to know — you care about him. The second reason,"
he summoned control, his effort revealing, "is selfish. Your mother and I have been
fighting cancer for years. Teddy's battle began just six weeks ago." His shudder ran
through me. "Teddy may not outlive this week. So you see, Patricka, there's no reason
for you to worry about us. Your mother and I may have our trials, but we haven't been
sentenced to an early death."
"Oh, Daddy," I cried, throwing my arms around him, hugging him too tightly to
breathe.
Flyer thrust the wounded branch between us, barked once, pawed my leg, then his.
The small shaggy white dog amidst waving green fronds eyed us, demanding inclusion.
We laughed, my father and I.
"You're okay, Flyer — give me that thing." He took the free end of the branch, dog
and man braced and tugging, their play respite from emotion. When he let go, Flyer
voiced triumph and bounded off to stand above her prize, gleeful and panting. "She's
smart, has a sense of humor, too." His pleasure became mine.
"Why else would I name her CB Flyer? Don't worry about me, my dear Daddy-O.
I'll keep my balance."
"See that you do!"
"I'm almost done with the book. One more edit and off to a literary agent. I brought
it with me to work on."
"How about my reading it after dinner, Patricka?"
"You've been reading it for years!"
"You've been improving it for years."
We walked back to the house, Flyer trailing, without the palmetto.
The next afternoon, I sat on the terrace polishing my manuscript. The ceiling fan
whirred quietly, stirring the warm heavy air. Mother was playing bridge at a friend's,
Father was at his desk. The phone rang once, then once again and stopped. The phone
always rang in my parents' house.
Flyer whuffed and jumped off the ottoman.
My father was in the doorway, his face scrunched, his hands fisted, the muscles of
his arms and neck corded, his shoulders bunched.
"What's wrong?" I stood up as he came through the sliding doors, stumbling on the
step to the terrace slate floor. He halted, legs apart, and I reached him, stopping short of
touching him.
Tears poked their way from his eyes, an aggressive gathering he didn't seem to
notice. "That was Teddy . . . on the phone just now . . . " His effort for control massed
tears in my eyes. "He, he said he loved me and that . . . that, that he — he told me he
knew he would die today or tomorrow and that . . . " His hands shielded his agony, then
returned to his sides. "Teddy wants to say goodbye . . . I'm going over there now."
And then his head rested against mine and I was stroking his hair, his back, rocking
him like a mother. It didn't seem long before he pushed me back gently and said he had
to go.
"Wash up first? You'll feel better."
He reappeared, hair wet and marked by the teeth of a comb. "Tell your mother
where I am, will you?"
"Yes . . . Please give Teddy and Ruth my love."
He nodded and left.
Every insect, every leaf stirring, every bird, every toad created individual sounds,
part of a whole I didn’t hear. I dropped onto the sofa, invited Flyer to my lap and buried
my face in her neck. She wriggled, trying to reach my cheek with her tongue. "Not now,
Fly. Let me just hug you." Her heart pumped a beat faster than mine.
How could Teddy announce his own death?
How could he know?
What must he be thinking? Feeling?
My heart pounded, usurping the beat of Flyer's, hounded by the incomprehensible.
The door to the garage thumped. Flyer gave out a half-hearted woof and leaped to
the floor, steadfast at my feet, tail waving.
Mother came through the door that separated kitchen and terrace.
"What are you doing in the dark — is something wrong?" Her voice was sharp.
I told her about Teddy while she went to each lamp, switching each to life with a
decisive click.
In the hush that followed, she went to the kitchen. Silence crept close in her
absence, dissolving at the sound of her return, microphone for her words.
"Take this." She handed me a glass of wine and sat beside me on the sofa, ice
clinking in her glass of vodka. She put my hand in hers, resting both on the back of Flyer
between us.
Her flesh felt as cold as mine. Ice tolled each time she took a sip.
Beyond the screens that enclosed us, canal waters lapped, winged creatures called
and life in the grasses made whispery scratches, the level of audibility unnaturally loud.
Death lived in my mind, frightening and unforgiving, threatening eternal vertigo and
the rape of loss. I had to stop thinking about it. "Should we do something about dinner?" "Let's see what your father wants." She released my hand and stood up. "Refill?"
"I forgot to feed Flyer. And she never said a word!"
While Flyer ate, Mother and I sipped and talked about Flyer, following her to the
front door and out for a stroll in front of the house, alert for my father's return.
We were at the kitchen table when headlights cut the darkness outside the window. The garage door whirred, a car door slammed, the back door unlatched.
Mother went to my father and hugged him. "How about a shot of vodka?"
"You're drinking? You know chemo and alcohol don't mix . . . " He spoke without
energy or inflection, but the anguish written on his face when he’d left was gone;
exhaustion now draped his features.
"Tonight, vodka is medicinal," she answered and made him one.
I trailed them to the terrace, Flyer at my heels. From the sofa next to Mother, I
watched my father drop into the armchair, lift his feet to the ottoman, take a sip, set his
drink down on the table.
He looked at us and said, "Teddy was in the living room with his sons and they
were watching golf on TV when I got there. I'd expected him to be in bed. He's way too
thin, but he seemed way too alive to be dying . . . They were betting who’d win each
hole, laughing and joking as if nothing was wrong." He shook his head and ice rattled
when he lifted his drink.
My mother broke the lengthening silence: "We have to eat."
Teddy died the next morning.
Father, Flyer and I took a walk late that afternoon. The sun burned my skin and
bathed it in sweat. I was acutely aware of my father beside me, of cancer slowly being
poisoned by chemo within him.
Teddy was dead. "Father, what do you think death is?" We linked fingers.
"It has no prejudice: it takes everyone. And if everyone who lives must die, how
bad can death be?"
"But you don't know what it is, you know only that it takes — and that scares me.
Yet death was my best friend more than once . . . "
"I'm all too aware of your relationship with death. But just wait your turn. Death
may not be bad, but I never said it was good!"
"Maybe it's the dying that's so terrible."
"Teddy died the way he wanted to and he received enough morphine to ease his
suffering — he was telling those cornball jokes of his just yesterday . . . "
I squeezed his hand.
"Patricka, I want you to know that your mother and I have decided we want to be
cremated, and we don't want funeral services. We don't care about ceremony. A funeral
is for the living and we don't want you children burdened with the rituals of death among
strangers. Your memories of us are what's important . . . Perhaps the three of you will
want to mourn us together. Maggie wants to plant trees over our ashes in her backyard."
"We'll do whatever you want us to do, but I don't have enough memories of you yet,
so stop talking about this, okay?"
"Patricka, I've been thinking about you. You have a real problem, one that requires
the support of family and medicine. I wish you and Maggie could come to terms. You're
sisters. You don't have to like each other to care for each other. And your mother and I
won't be here forever — "
"Stop it! And stop worrying about me! I live ninety minutes by car from Michael.
Maggie's in Buffalo, a plane ride away. Let it go. Please." How could there be a
relationship between Maggie and me when she insisted I stop wasting my time on a book
no one would read, that book the only thing I could like about myself?
Flyer approached the pool, halted a few feet away from the water, neck stretched,
sniffing, bolting back to safety between my feet. "Oh Fly, does any kind of water mean
bath to you?" I grinned into her responsive eyes, lapping up her eager love.
"All right." He sounded resigned. "And stop worrying about death. You'll find out
all you need to know about it when it comes for you."
But I could make death come to me. Death was the only way I could control my
life. The thought was comforting, but not one I dared express. "Your pragmatism got lost
in the genetic shuffle that formed me, but I'll take your word for it!" I looked at him,
considering the ease with which he dealt with life. "Don't you ever fear the unknown?"
"It's senseless to waste time being afraid of something that doesn't exist."
"What about cancer?"
"I made peace with myself and my maker when I thought I had just a few months to
live . . . I've been lucky. So far, for eight years."
“Your ‘maker’? Do you believe in God now?”
“I believe that there is something universal that is nothing like we humans can
imagine. Why not call it God?”
I was surprised by the change in his view. Would that affect mine? I remembered
my recent “religious” experience. "Did you fear the messiah?"
"My fear was for you." We walked on together, alone with our thoughts.













CHAPTER THIRTY










My first consultation with Dr. Allen took place the day after I returned to Chicago.
Subdued elegance, each piece of furniture in his waiting room was handsome and
comfortable, like the office behind the cream door, and the man opening that door. He
was slender, his posture good, his facial features regular. I liked his navy pinstripe suit,
his shirt white, crisp and neatly divided by a navy silk tie.
I greeted him and was drawn to the armchair near his desk. “In looks, you’ve styled
your office as you have yourself. And a needed relief from the old beige-on-beige
Geltzer, whose pompous litany never changed.”
“Do you usually relate human nature to colors?”
“When people connect to something within me, I see colors before faces.”
“Do you paint?”
“I did, until 1978 . . .”
“What happened in 1978?”
“I lost my future, gave up on marriage, lost the artist in me, and then for a week, it
looked like my father had six months to live. But his information was outdated.” Our
blind acceptance of a twenty year old encyclopedia’s prognosis on anything made me
smile and shudder in that memory. Sudden tears slipped from my eyes.
He asked why I’d come to him. As I told him the story of Marv and my hat, he
maintained a relaxed pose and kept eye contact with me. I was surprised that I could
speak of this experience without anger, without any emotion.
He said he was moving to New York City in June and would be willing to see me
until then. He also knew of a number of good psychiatrists who didn’t focus on goals and
would give me a list of names and numbers.
“What’s going on now?” His voice was soothing and inviting.
“My father has cancer again. They're pumping him with poison every other week —
in the hospital."
He leaned toward me, concern shadowing his eyes, urging me to continue.
"They have to inject the antidote twelve hours later or the stuff will kill him before it
gets the cancer."
"How are you feeling about it?" He rose from behind the desk and walked to a
window, adjusted the curtain, turned back to me, his eyes questioning me in the silence.
"My mother looks terrible — the chemo she's getting is pretty rough on her . . . I
can't think about either of them. Too much fear . . . I'm writing a book about my
experience with madness to warn people how easy it is to lose your mind. I feel okay
when I'm writing. I'm glad I can work on the book again. A literary agent agreed to read
it! It should be ready for him in a week or two."
"It sounds like you're keeping your balance.”
He gave me the name of a psychologist who tested people to help clarify
diagnoses. I went and had fun with the Rorschach section.
I saw Dr. Allen every other week. As far as I knew, my parents were both doing as
well as could be expected.
* * *
At Dr. Allen’s office again, I blurted, “You’ll be leaving soon — ”
"Patricia, I think it would be unwise for you to return to Dr. Simon."
“Why did it take you so long to reach the same conclusion I'd come to after Simon
knocked my hat off last fall?”
"Because I needed to get to know you better before I could give you the best of my
judgement.”
“Thank you,” I said and smiled. “And I’m relieved that you agree with me.”
“Good. And as I mentioned when we met, I leave Chicago in June.” He produced
a sheet of paper. “Here's the list of doctors that I promised you. Until you find one you
like, please consult me whenever you wish."
"Thank you." I lit a cigarette.
“Don’t forget, I'm available only until June. You'll find the right doctor. Everyone on
that list is good, none has a set of preconceived goals for patients, and each is a
proponent of antidepressants as needed. Let me hear how your search progresses."
"I wish you weren't leaving town, but I’ll see until then. Thank you."
We shook hands warmly.
* * *
"When you make an appointment with me, you’ll be billed for it whether you show
up or not. Advance notice doesn’t change that." After two interviews at eighty and
ninety-five dollars respectively, I asked that question by phone. I went to Florida at the
last minute too often to risk payment for unrendered service.
Time was limbo, waiting for acceptance or rejection of the book, waiting for updates
on chemo versus cancer, waiting for the next doctor on Dr. Allen’s list to return my call. Limbo was a stress-loaded grandstand.
Familiar pain gradually numbed speculation, projection, hope. I made myself
describe the weather and out came a story about a man dying of cancer in a red house
above a valley in the Catskill Mountains. His seduction by death was romantic. It
returned him to the kiss by memories and the wonder of the natural wold that faced every
window in the house, except for the garage.
Anxiety hummed within me while I wrestled with his views on death, while I
sketched the physical nature of the man and his mountain.
He was eighty-one. Sitting in a rocking chair on the porch looking out, he felt at
one with the wind, the earth, his heart and his spirit in one of nature's finest sites. His
horizon gave him peaks that man could climb, the sky that man had conquered, and the
weather, the one we humans had yet to control.
During occasional meetings, Dr. Allen questioned me about my activities, my sleep
patterns, my weight, my writing, and at the end of each session, he'd conclude I was
taking the right amount of lithium, and that I was doing as well as possible under adverse
conditions.
He also questioned the fact I had yet to find a doctor from the list he'd given me.
He understood my financial circumstances and was sure that there were doctors out
there who let people make up missed appointments.
In three weeks he'd be gone.
Each time I rejected another psychiatrist, Jess would shrug and change the subject.
We had less and less to talk about, less and less contact.
* * *
Susan Iser's invitation to dinner was unexpected. Phone calls had been our only
meeting ground for months.
She handed me a glass of wine and led the way to her living room.
Seated across from her, I raised my glass and said, "I’m glad to see your face, it
goes so well with your voice . . . except that you've lost weight — Did you want to?"
"I'll gain it all back too soon . . . How are your parents?"
"They're going to Italy — Florence, my mother’s most favorite place in the world.
They’ll leave as soon as they're done with chemo."
"When?"
"Mother has six weeks to go, but my father . . . I don't know, at least three more
months."
"Italy sounds worth waiting for . . . How's the book coming?"
"It's with an agent in New York. Susan, if he doesn't want it, I'm not sure what I'll
do."
"One man's rejection is another man's prize. On my mother’s side, a cousin in New
York has a literary agent in the family. I'll call her tomorrow! See? You have back up
already!"
"Susan, you’re a magician. Thank you. You probably have no idea what this
means to me. Thank you." I searched my purse for my cigarettes and lighter. "In two
weeks I'll be shrinkless. Maybe someday I'll be able to trust myself again, but until then,
my mind needs psychiatric supervision."
"Why can't you find another doctor?"
I summed up my recent attempts.
She nodded encouragingly. When I finished, she said, "I know a wonderful
psychiatrist who never charges for missed appointments, given sufficient warning. She's
with the Illinois Institute of Psychiatry, so if she can't take you, she'll know someone who
can. You can stop worrying!"
"Thank you! I’ll call her tomorrow — why have you lost weight?"
"Anxiety."
"Susan, you never said . . . "
"No. You've had more than enough to deal with." She took one of my cigarettes
and lit it, a surprising gesture. "When things with Phil turned sour a few months ago, I
realized I hated my job, my life . . . " Smoke poured from her mouth as if never inhaled. "After listing my positives and negatives, I realized I hated myself. I turned into a
hermit for a while, then I found the doctor I just told you about. I'm getting to know
myself, even like myself — a task made easier by a job with supportive people who
respect my judgment." She flashed a wicked grin. "A far cry from the corporate mentality
we used to work with!"
"Hallelujah! Respect makes the drudge bearable, doesn't it?" I didn’t wait for her
answer. “I wish I'd known you were having trouble, I would've given your self-respect a
boost in the right direction."
"You always do, but I needed time to get to know myself through my own eyes."
"How strong of you to stand up to yourself."
"You stand up to yourself."
"Not anymore. I — have you figured out your relationship with Phil yet?"
"It's been painful, but I now understand why I've picked married men like Michael
and misogynists like Phil. They were excuses for failure. I didn't think I deserved better. \
But Patricia?" She put out the half-smoked cigarette, looked up and smiled. "I'm trying to
rid my life of every negative possible, and I'm trying to learn to live with the ones I can't
change. My attitude toward men needs a lot more work . . . "







CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE










The sun was a white hole in the western sky, its heat blocked by layers of
cuneiform clouds, the day neither hot nor cold, not atypical of June. Through the window
of the bus heading into the Loop, humid air blew back my hair and brushed my face,
cooling, almost chilling after each breathless stop along State Street.
Like the day, my emotions were nebulous, waiting for a shift in wind.
In four days, Dr. Allen would be gone. The psychiatrist Susan’s doctor
recommended was three blocks away.
Two blocks.
One.
His waiting room was a spare small space with straw-colored walls and furnishings.
A view of the sky and lake through a large unadorned window invited a sense of freedom
from the box I was in.
Before I could sit down, the connecting door opened. Dr. Ronald Moline smiled,
swung the door wide and invited me into his office.
The door latched quietly behind me.
A wheat-colored couch stood against the long wall, seeming large in the long,
narrow room. I sat at the end facing the door and withdrew lighter and cigarettes from my
purse. I lit one.
The doctor settled into an armchair like a stalk in a pulse of nature. He was long
limbed and lean, his sandy-colored hair a sparse crown above his narrow long nose that
centered his oval face, gold rimmed glasses a frame for his light eyes. His wear was
subtle and tweed, unobtrusive, like his surroundings, like his manner. I felt comfortable
facing him.
His desk backed into the far end wall and it was heavy and oak and stacked with
neat papers and books. I turned back to our end of the room and found his eyes.
"As I said on the phone,” he said in his comfortable voice, “I don’t bill for emergency
cancellations if missed sessions are made up. And given a week's notice, there's no
charge, and no makeup required." He was easy to listen to, no indication of doc Geltzer’s
arrogance; his voice was dry, his demeanor reserved. And he was fair, not greedy, like
so many in his profession.
Bony knees pushed against his trousers when he recrossed his legs, the s-curve of
his body sliding to the other side of his chair. His appearance evoked in me the image of
an “absent-minded professor.” Not all of them were gentle or decisive, but Dr. Moline
showed me these qualities immediately, underscoring them as time continued.
"I’m so glad you feel that way. Thank you. What percentage of your practice
includes manic-depression?"
"One hundred percent when I worked with inpatients at the University of Chicago
Hospitals." His tone was light, his eyes alive with interest. "I've been in private practice
roughly ten years — half my professional life — and schizophrenia and some neuroses
account for a good many of my patients now."
"Not enough mania on the outside to keep you busy?"
His smile was immediate.
I was afraid to believe that he was who he seemed to be, someone I could like. I
needed him. Our lengthening silence urged me on. "I've been told that antidepressants
can stop the swing into suicide."
"Indeed they can. You're receptive to that form of treatment, I take it?"
"Lock me up if I refuse! I don't want to go through that again." Self-consciously, I
moved back from the edge of the cushion and put out my cigarette.
His smile faded and his features evened in his pale oval face. He nodded and
made no effort to speak.
"Shall I give you background information now?"
"Please tell me anything you wish."
"But every psychiatrist I’ve seen has wanted mental, physical and medical data
before we talked about anything else!" Take it easy.
"That information will keep. What's happening right now is more important. But
please, tell me what you want me to know."
"About what?"
"Whatever you're thinking about now, if you like."
"I need psychotherapy, not psychoanalysis. At least that's what this feels like vis a
vis the movies."
"I'm an analyst. Perhaps that's why."
"I need direction, not analysis! I need feedback and explanations . . . I need
instructions. Now, not in years from now! Can't you do this?"
"If you like," he said mildly. "I'm also a psychotherapist. No rabbits out of hats,
though. I leave that to my patients."
"I need a hat for my rabbit . . . "
His smile was inquiring, encouraging. His eyes drew me out.
"I'm coming out of a depression I didn't know I was in. Mania didn't lead into this
one like the other times. My last doctor had dissected my first two bouts with depression,
but he never mentioned this one until I fired him. After that I saw Dr. Allen, who’s leaving
for New York any minute." Self-consciousness vied with need for understanding. "Had I
known I was clinically depressed, I would've felt better about feeling so rotten."
His laughter was strong and immediate, in contrast to his appearance. "How long
has it been since you were first diagnosed?"
"Four years."
"How many psychotic breaks?"
"One. But the depression cycle was — I wasn’t sure I’d survive it."
"And now you're winning another battle against depression. If we decide to work
together, you can tell me how you think you're doing, and I'll give you my opinion. Will
that work?" His vigilant repose also was comforting, reassuring.
"You'll analyze my analysis? I like that idea.”
“Good. So how are you feeling now?”
“But seriously, don't we have to go backwards to go forward?"
"There's no time limit to history. It'll keep until we get through the present. What’s going on now?"
He listened to my doubts infested by fear for my parents, and for my book, captives of cancer and a literary agent. He encouraged the telling with occasional nods. When I concluded, the sympathy in his question, "What's good in your life?" rushed tears into my eyes.
"Writing my story to warn others of how easily madness seduces people who, like me, know nothing about its symptoms and thus could fall over the edge."
"Are you working on anything now?"
"A short story. But it's a struggle and I have no idea how it ends."
"What's it about?"
"An old man dying of cancer on an autumn mountainside."
"Is your struggle with style or content?"
"I can't get past the beginning."
"Your parents have cancer, you said."
"My father's fine! It's my mother who scares us."
"I'd like to read the story — when you've finished it, of course, which I know you will." His confidence built mine. "Do you feel depressed now?"
"I'm scared . . . I can't sit still for long, but I'm not speeding, I don't feel hyper."
"How are you sleeping?"
"Thirty milligrams of Valium give me four, five hours a night."
He prescribed dalmane rather than another tranquilizer. My palms itched while he
wrote the 'script that would insure me against future need. He gave it to me and eyed me
carefully. "You appear calm. How much do you weigh?"
"A hundred and fifteen, give or take . . . I'm a small-boned five-nine."
"Get to a hundred and twenty-five. You'll feel better. Do you exercise?"
"If hauling furniture and circling the block three times a day counts."
"That's a start. You're not exhibiting manic signs, but your brain could be fighting
depression with a dose of hypomania, and the depression is there, below the surface. See if the new prescription works. Seven hours of sleep a night should
help. Are you employed?"
"I'm a freelance writer, but I haven't been doing much about it lately. My parents ... the book. I'm afraid the agent will hate it."
"Writers need a strong constitution to overcome the rejections inherent in publishing. It must be difficult not to take them personally."
"Acceptance of the book would justify my existence these last few years. My parents would stop worrying about me if I published . . . The book has to be accepted. Soon." I desperately wanted my parents to know I’d be safe before they died.
"You can send it to another agent if this one doesn't take it."
"Maybe it deserves rejection. I fall in love with everything I write — I used to fall in love with every painting I began. Not until months after I think something's finished do I discover its flaws."
"Has anyone else read your book?"
"Family and friends. They said it's much better than the first few versions." I lit another cigarette. "But then, as my father will sweetly tease me about my hopeless tennis game, 'you can improve a hundred percent, but zero times a hundred is still zero . . . ' The agent's opinion will be the first truly objective estimate of the book's value."
"It already has value: writing it was quite an undertaking. Be proud of that
accomplishment, and of the fact you've received positive feedback."
"It did take a few years to get that far."
"Would you let me read it?"
"I'll bring it next week . . . That is . . . "
"Let me check my schedule for a day and time."
* * *
"Jess! I've found my doc!"
"The last one on Dr. Allen's list?"
"Susan Iser found him."
"What's his name?"
"Ronald Moline."
"Never heard of him. I'll check him out with Stan."
"I didn't know you were speaking to Stan again — what about you and Albert?"
"Albert and I are fine, and Stan and I have been on speaking terms for a while now. I'll ask him about this Moline man."
"Don't bother. This doctor has the right credentials for me. Also, he wants to read
Journey! Have you been writing?"
"Wait a minute. I want to know more about this doc Iser dug up."
The familiar candle-lit room at Eduardo's held only one occupied table other than
ours. The tuxedo dressed waiter approached us, quelling the bitterness rising in me over Jessie's disdain for the doctor Susan had found.
After ordering, I proudly if defensively described my meeting with Dr. Moline.
"I'm asking Stan about him," she said when I finished, needling the ire filtering my
feelings for her.
"There’s no need to bother Stan. Dr. Moline wants to read my book."
"Why's that so important to you? He's not a critic."
"No. Better! He's a psychiatrist. It is actually possible that I’ve misinterpreted
some things over the years and I don’t want to cloud the reader's view of manic-
depression and its treatment."
"You should have told me that. Stan would do that for you. You should have told
me."
"There was no need to tell you." It felt good to say that; it felt good to resolve
issues without her help.
"Did this Moline man say anything about nutrition and exercise?"
"You're never going to let me off that hook, are you," I said, forcing laughter. "And
yes, he said moving furniture and hiking the Fly were a start."
"Moving furniture? You never said anything about that. What've you been doing to
what?"
Relieved to arrive at a neutral subject, I felt my tone lighten. "It was too bright, too
distracting to sit facing the bay windows — all those people milling about outside, all that
sunshine. I finally put the desk against the wall on the near side of the fireplace."
"But — "
"I can see the fire, a far more favored light in my eyes than the sun."
"What did you do with the armchair and end table that were there?"
"Moved them closer to the sofa . . . it's much cozier this way. I like it this way."
Jess seemed as relieved as I was when dinner finally ended in a state of civility. Neither of us mentioned continuing the evening.
Jessie's arrogance was wearing. And I didn't care for her attitude toward Dr.Moline.
I thought it stemmed from the fact I'd found him through Susan, not Stan.
I worked on The Red House, polishing, refining, fleshing the sketch of the past, the
future simmering in a stream of my consciousness. I seemed to write the same way I
used to paint. Even if I knew the subject, I never knew how it would unfold until I stepped
back and looked.
Sometimes phrases sent me to the moon and back, electric thrills that flirted with
my original spirit, giving it life in the joy and freedom of creation. I also was lucky that
writing had become the second art to engage my passion. I needed black and white
definitions to chart my thoughts and take me away from the fears that owned my mind. It
was okay that I couldn’t paint. The language of colors was subject to a variety of
interpretations and words were not.
* * *
Suddenly it was winter in Chicago, yet no logs burned in my hearth. The fire in my
heart creating The Red House took what energy I had.
The man in my story didn't have a name yet, but now he had a daughter. His
cancer was terminal. He had no interest in chemo and nursing homes. Treatment might
prolong his life, but it would diminish its quality, he believed. He wanted to die in the
barn-red house his great-grandfather had built, surrounded by the artifacts of family, and
by the majesty of nature's art, an ever-changing festival in its purest form.
I was still sketching this man while his daughter formed in my mind. Her impending
visit to her father's preserve emerged in my thoughts as the grounds of her childhood
developed on paper.
The daughter was a writer; she could work anywhere. She would go to her father,
stay with him, challenge him to favorite games, spelling time with silence and accountings
of memory. And together they would mourn his wife, her mother, lessening the pain of
grief still intense for them although two years old.
But I couldn't translate the daughter into words. I was afraid to tap the well for her.
I created the forests that ringed the land through which a creek flowed, the wind's
song, music for the soul.
Soon he would share the forest with his daughter.
The windows rattled in my home, leaking temperatures well below freezing. I didn’t
have the energy to seal them and kept the thermostat at fifty-five to defray the cost of
heat, donning long underwear, two cotton turtlenecks, ski sweater and corduroys.
Over and over I edited The Red House, unable to decide if he should be alone
when he died. I couldn't decide when he would die, or precisely how.
Winter came to his mountain.
Nature wore snow with an elegance missing in the blooming-season of pale then
vivid colors, adding to the rainbow begun in spring, changing palettes for the fall, a bold
and brash herald to winter. I loved winter skies footed in snow, silvering grays polished
by clouds.
Snow drifted by my windows periodically; it didn't stay, it didn't cloak the stark sullen
skies and stripped trees, it didn't hide the grime.
Walks with Flyer were brief.
Father and daughter were together on the mountain; he was slipping, growing
weaker.
I put The Red House away.
The chemotherapy my father was enduring was more sapping than previous
treatments. Yet he went to the office twice a week, and he worked at home a few hours
most days. And then he remained in the hospital ten days after an injection. Nothing
serious, my family told me. I didn't find out till long after he was home how near he'd
been to death after he was given an overdose of poison.
That information took my breath away for days. Every night I'd tell myself he was
okay, he was back at work and golfing and socializing. But I couldn't rid myself of
pounding fear.
Mother rarely played golf anymore. Her shoulder hurt, she said, referencing an old
problem, never mentioning the lethal spot in her lung. Whenever I thought about her, an
image of the black hole of death hovered in her chest, its size unchanging, its threat
constant.
Dr. Moline returned Journey, nodding his head, his eyes and mouth smiling. He
said, "You can be proud of writing this. And if a major publisher doesn't take it, I hope
you'll send it to a university press. I think it should be mandatory reading for psychiatric
residents who tend to see patients as textbook cases rather than as human beings in
crisis." He offered to write a letter of praise for potential publishers.
His support spun me into a manic-like whirl that lasted several days.
Jess said Dr. Moline sounded like a nice man.
Nice?! She never seemed happy for me anymore.
Any day I would hear from the agent; it had been three months since Journey left
home.
Romantic thrillers occupied time once spent writing.
The bed was more comfortable for reading than the green velvet sofa, but tobacco
walls and the dark brown rug soon struck discord and took me down. The colors were
boring, depressing, hallmark of my state of mind after giving up on Gary, the man who'd
changed my mind about marriage. I laughed out loud when it occurred to me that
tobacco was better than black. I hadn't been that unhappy when I'd bought this place.
This apartment had become my nest, my fortress, a husband for my future. I'd
been at home, in the true sense of that phrase, for seven years now. I hadn’t been at
home in any place after leaving my parents’ house at eighteen, leaving college three
years later for Manhattan and art school. Other than not having a fireplace in the
bedroom, my Victorian condo was perfect. The furnishings of each room furnished me
with pleasure and validation. Each piece had been selected or accepted with love. I still
cherished each, each conjuring better times.
Too bad I couldn't pick men as well as I could pick furniture.
The paintings on the walls were tangible expressions of the best of me, a thought
that returned Journey to mind. It was as good as any of my paintings. When would I
know its fate?
The delivery of mail became all important, each post a source of anticipation and
anxiety. Relief and despair tore through me when nothing came from the agent in New
York.
Waiting was killing.














CHAPTER THIRTY-Two










I wrote a letter to friends in New York City and somehow launched a story
about a woman divorcing her husband and Manhattan life. She moved to the northwest
and rented a cabin as far away from people as she could get. The cabin sat amidst
billowing long grasses laced with wild flowers, brilliant primary colors fronting the last
stand of firs backed into the base of the mountain’s peak. The east side of the cabin was
banked by green and yellowed grasses and shrubs that swayed and cast shadows
against the steep rise of sheer rock and shale. The view north was that of a cliff, The
Shelf, as the rental agent called it, at which the road spilled into a parking lot bordered by
guardrails. Even behind closed windows, she heard water plunge from a fall over cliffs
out of sight, its roar a muted rush that returned to her the underlying sound of
Manhattan’s traffic flowing along the East River Drive.
I left New York for Chicago ten years ago — ten years. Right move, wrong reason,
given my inability to love wisely.
Writing about Myrt led me into new territory, plumbing old experiences for new
versions that sprang from my imagination. At the end of the day’s work, I was as excited
to read what I’d written as I was whenever I stepped back from a new painting to see
what had appeared on canvas. I still didn’t know how Myrt’s story would end, and
curiosity brought me back to the typewriter again and again, eager to find out more about
her life.
“Myrt’s” husband was trying to block their divorce, and although her attorney was
countering each move, Myrt’s novel stalled. She had a dream. It was a nightmare.
Three days later, the horror she’d faced in sleep still eluded me.
I devoured paperback mysteries. Sleep, mysteries, occasional phone calls and
play with Flyer subdued my sense of impending panic; cigarettes also helped me to breathe deeply. My book would be published and the fortune that this would bring diverted me from fear now and then. I didn’t need to die anymore. My parents would be with us until they were at least in their nineties.
Visions of my bedroom in different colors, lighter colors, began to occupy me. My
choice narrowed to the deep pink of dusk for the walls and bleached oak floorboards,
metaphor for white sand beaches.
Susan’s appreciation of my plan excited me. I now had something interesting to
focus on, and the goal was easy to attain.
When the dust settled and I saw the reality of my vision, my heart sank; it raced
and beat erratically. The room was too pink-and-white and my body reacted as if chalk
had just struck the blackboard the wrong way. I shook myself and went to the green
velvet sofa in the living room, Flyer right behind me. She came into my lap when I sat
down and rode me as I swung my legs up over the south arm of the sofa and put my
head on the opposite pillowed arm. I closed my eyes and envisioned a floor lamp,
lampshades and new sheets, all in black; three black throw rugs and black enamel paint
for the rattan bureau and mirror would help balance the space.
My “must-haves” stretched my credit to the limit. Guilt coursed its cold way into my
consciousness. Paying interest on debt was a cardinal sin in my father’s book.
I spent too much time in that room to be upset by a scheme of things that I could
fix.
I loved my new room and invited Jess over to see it.
"Hey! You’ve made major changes," she cried, checking out my latest design, her
chin at a haughty angle.
"And?"
"It's brighter — what's this?" she asked, swooping over the bed to pick up a
paperback. "How dare you aspire to be a writer while reading this dreck! Read Hemingway and Bellow and Fitzgerald. Take a look at Rebecca West and Colette. Learn from them. You get your bad habits from this shit."
"Your heroes make me wallow in the negatives I need to escape." I whirled away
from her without words and went to the bathroom, relieved to put a door between us. When I was calmer, I emerged and found her in the living room.
She looked around as I entered, lit a cigarette and, before I could settle on the sofa, she said: "So now you’re accepting handouts from Jake."
The condescension in her tone infuriated me, but I was careful to sound casual
when I said, "Why would you say that?"
"You've been crying poor for months and that room must have set you back plenty."
"How kind of you to remind me. However, your thinking is flawed. I haven't been
thinking about Jake and so haven’t asked him to help me yet, but I will. Are you still
accepting expensive gifts from your married Englishman?"
"Gifts. Not support. I'm not his mistress. There is a difference. I work at the ad
agency for my money. I always have and I always will. I can't wake up when I feel like it
and write what I want when I want to. I don't have rich parents. And I'm not jealous, if
that's what you're thinking."
"Jealous! Why would you be? You've made a success of your career and you always attract interesting men. Jealousy could claim me, but it doesn't. I'm glad for you — Oh, and by the way, my parents are comfortable, not rich, which is why I need Jake’s help. And if you think that's wrong, then let me remind you, my dear, that you shunned me when I first let Jake into my bed, and now look at you . . . Nor have I ever considered “mistress” a dirty word. But then, neither do I change my moral code to achieve my purpose. No doubt that, in time, you'll change your mind about mistresses, too."
"You're way off."
"Who are you to sit in judgment from that high chair of yours? Who put you on that
bench? And where are your black robes and gavel?" My hands fisted at my sides and
my blood rushed through me, chilling and scalding as it raced along its path. Our eyes
were locked, but I seemed to see both of us, as if my body belonged to the composition
of our exchange.
"I don't need to justify myself to you," I heard my voice saying. "But F.Y.I, I don't
judge people by their friends or parents, or where they come from, what schools they
attended, which books they read, how much money they have. Nor do I disparage your
friends, as you so often do to mine."
"Perhaps this is the crossing we've never bridged before," she said quietly.
My body felt like cold steel; my fingernails felt like sharpened metal driving into my
fisted palms. I took a deep breath and as I slowly exhaled, I said, "You're still in the dark
age of hypocrisy, and, it's finally coming home to me, of jealousy, as well — thank you for
pointing that out, Jess. You know I dearly wish you could have parents like mine. I wish
everyone could be so blessed. I also think I'm glad we've finally crossed that bridge."
"You've changed. You're not the same person you were when we met — "
"How observant of you and, I might add, you also have done a one-eighty."
"You've changed in the last few months."
"You've been holier than thou for months. I thought maybe you were trusting your
new psychiatrist and absorbed by feeling better about yourself. But I'm tired of your
telling me what to do and how to do it, as well as your anger when I don't jump. And I
don't have to read Hemingway to be a good writer." Quickly I drew in air and expelled it
in another rush of words: "But, Jess? The biggest difference between us is not the
books we read, it’s the existence of your need to judge. And if my choice of reading
matter and my feelings for Jake are cause for your condemnation, then girl, you better
throw out that wardrobe and don those black robes and get your seat on that bench.
Lucky you to be so black and white, and so blackly pristine pure."
She lit a cigarette and stared into my eyes, her own of a glinting blue. "We’ve
crossed that bridge and maybe now we need a break from each other."
"Maybe."
We stood. I waited for her to put out her cigarette and approach the door.
I followed her to the top of the stairs and watched her descend. At the door below,
she looked back up at me and quietly said, "Take care of yourself."
"You too."
The door closed soundlessly, as did the outer one. I heard the gate shut just after
locking my home.
I felt lightheaded and hollow, but neither hot nor cold. I felt relief. I felt cleansed,
purified, by the outpouring of feelings buried so long by the positives of my relationship
with Jess, a rose now hidden by thorns.
I undressed, got into bed and couldn’t help smiling with pleasure as I gazed upon
my new dusky pink walls, white floor and black furnishings. I nested into my pillows,
picked up the paperback and immediately returned to East Germany and the hunt for
Neo-Nazis, Flyer snugged into my side, sleeping for a change.
The absence of Jessie's nagging centered me in peace, maintained, when I wasn't
writing, by pot, fudge and TV.
As days passed, the aftermath of our bitter fury receded and I began to miss Jess
— until the grating of recent months replayed in my mind.
The literary agent sent back Journey. He liked the writing, he liked the story, but he
wanted me to “novelize” it, give it color through dialogue and descriptions of time and
place.
I vacillated between elation and despair.
I called Peter, the magazine editor who'd written an encouraging rejection of my
story about the bus people. Peter agreed to help me for a fee.
I thought about Jake. I saw him once. He raised my hostility, not my passion. I
signed on with a temp-work agency and spent weekdays stuffing envelopes, answering
phones, counting minutes until free. The tedium diminished me, but the bright side of this
mindless work for my mindless being was the cash I needed to pay Peter. Jess might
enjoy that irony.
Working with Peter challenged and stimulated me. "Describe this room,” Peter
said. “What did he mean? She mean? Expand dialogue here; add dialogue there; why
did C. do this?" he'd write on the pages of my manuscript.
I loved the directions he sent me into. After giving myself the name Claire Stark,
incorporating my parental bloodlines, my history came more easily, and from a deeper
place. Writing and rewriting my story brought Jess into my life for as long as I could last
at the home typewriter every night and weekend.
When I'd turn out the light to find sleep, I'd miss her more than ever.
I wanted to share with her this experience of novelizing my story.
"A novel idea from the start," she'd no doubt say.
One day, I called her at work and left a message. She didn’t call me back. Dear Jess,
I understand. The phone is an excommunication for us. Aural connections have become too painful, crowding too many negatives into a corner.
But for everything that's passed between us, I can never let you go, never stop loving you, never stop thinking about you.
Besides, you're in the book! I read about your deeds nearly every day . . .
You returned me to the womb, an embryo of madness that emerged too early, nursed by parents, not an institution, this fact crucial to my well-being and getting well.
You sent me to the only place that could fight the damage of ultimate loss that oozed layer upon layer of horror once the borders of reality reappeared to me through the veil that lithium and Thorazine produced.
And when I returned to Chicago three months later, clinging to the ropes my parents had thrown, you secured those lines at home-base.
You kept reminding me that I cannot kill my parents' child. You made me laugh at the bleakest of musings, making me remember better times past and to come, sharing the burden of a terror that no one else I knew had experienced.
We've come far down the road that we entered nine years ago; we've been in places few go, and now we have come to a fork, a weigh station, literally and figuratively. And in my mind your positives outweigh your negatives.
I miss you, though not the ruts we entered months ago. I hope you'll respond to this letter with a call or a note. But Jess, return it if it's an intrusion.
I signed the letter love, then added a postscript about the novelization of Journey. I mailed the letter.
The letter didn't come back, nor did Jess contact me.
* * *
I finished transforming Journey Through Psychosis and Beyond. The writing was
good, the descriptions and characterizations were good. Peter, my professor of
novelization, said so.
And my family liked it.
I sent the revisions of my book back to the literary agent.
The VCR was a miracle. Escape at any time, removing me from the agony of
waiting.
"If you were a celebrity, I'd take it," the agent wrote at last. "You're a talented writer
and I wish you success," he'd closed.














CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE










Dear Jess,
I haven't kept a journal since cancer claimed new sites in my parents. Nor have I recorded our break, nor the silence that emanates from you like the thunder of waves storming against the rocks of a cliff.
The story of the woman divorcing her life sits beside the typewriter untouched. I cannot formulate the dream sequence that begins where the story stops.
I need to write if I'm going to live. I have to put my burden down — it's your courage I need to inspire me. But Jess, I don't need corporeal contact in the vast void now between us. I don’t want it. It's safer here. I cannot bear to see your strength in the face of my weakness. I don't want to remember the days we fought anxiety
side-by-side.
Somehow, addressing you brings you to me as surely as the phone used to do, checkpoint for thoughts too awful to explore alone.
Writing you somehow accesses your empathy, and your wisdom. And Jess, your estate in my heart is free and clear of ill will, if not of sorrow for our severance, a kind clearance for the foundering of our closeness.
No one could take my path through isolating desperation, that tundra too harsh for positive thinking.
Someday I hope you'll know about these unmailed epistles of spiritual contact, the only channel capable of releasing my pain. Someday our breach will mend, I believe that, Jess. I have to believe it —
My book was rejected, Jessie. My book.
The years spent writing it, revising it —
I didn't make the grade and there's no justification for using savings to finance failure.
I still can't earn my living from my art.
I know.
I know. He was one agent out of hundreds.
I'm sending my book to an agent Susan knows.
Susan stood with me at the mailbox, watching the brown-papered manuscript
disappear into the jaws of fate. We went for a drink at Sir Loin.

Hope rode again within me, though not strong enough to eliminate my fear of
rejection.
Rented movies, paperbacks, temp work, trips to Milwaukee and time with friends
rolled the days over, churning the hours till sleep came. And always the little white dog,
Flyer, eager, bright, loving, shared my hours of waiting, forcing laughter from me,
bestowing unguarded love, getting me outside, sometimes even to the park.
Rejection took six weeks this time and it was in the form of another personal letter ("An encouragement in and of itself," Jess would have said).
I rolled a joint and smoked it, watching a movie taped the night before, hiding in my
bed. I couldn't tolerate the burn of rejection. Twenty minutes into the movie, I turned on
the lamp and reread the letter several times. I built plans for my death. Pills. I didn't
have enough. I didn't really need pills to help me fall asleep anymore.
I fell asleep earlier, rising later on weekends, stumbling to let Flyer out the back
door, stumbling back to bed. I counted the weeks till my next prescription for sleeping
pills. Soon I'd have enough to leave this pain. I’d save enough to help Mother to escape
her pain, too.
Memory of my sister Maggie's words tormented me: "No one wants to read about
you."
* * *
Flyer needed exercise, I couldn't keep letting her out the back door. One day, guilt
made me take her into the raw March winds that blew through the park. I watched her rip
in tight circles around me. Her joy made me laugh and stride on, the dog racing between
me and hot scents. The agent’s "you're a talented writer" flashed into my thoughts. I'd
forgotten that professional encouragement when I was inside my need to die.
I reread my manuscript and before I finished the third sentence, I was compelled to
edit, expand, polish it.
Days passed, weeks passed. When I wrote, life was good.
Time wove days through spring into summer.
Details of life after my hysterectomy came back to me. I reread my manic
messages, sickened again by the knowledge I once had believed I worked for the
“Messiah.” I incorporated some of those messages into the book. My would-be best
seller would be published after all. After all, the psychic said I would be big-time famous. His prediction bathed me in the precious warmth of anticipation.
Working on my book to help others help themselves again gave me a sense of
purpose and I hurried to walk Flyer, speeding my return to the typewriter. I resented the
mindless, heartless time I had to spend to earn a paycheck.
I rarely felt like seeing Jake.
Susan and I met once a week or so.
There were movies to tape and occasionally to rent — I never saw them in theaters
anymore.
I sent the book to another literary agent, believing its revision would sell it.
Typing envelopes, sorting mailings, answering other people’s phones dragged time
no longer spelled by the plotting of Journey's new map. Neck and shoulder and back
muscles burned; headaches blurred my vision. I lived on aspirin. And lithium.
I began to look for a full-time writing position. I needed money, and I'd rather be a
creative whore than a clerical one.
Between interviews, although they were few and far between, I refused temp work
that demanded more than three days a week. I coasted on the prospect of full-time pay
and dedicated my time to writing and interviews.
Once in a while, I glanced through the story I’d started, hoping to unlock the
mystery of Myrt’s nightmare. The untitled, unfinished story went into a box on the floor
under the desk.
I interviewed for a job that interested me. They wanted someone else to see me
next week. Hope bubbled. I suppressed it. Rejection was too painful.
I took out my story about the old man dying on a mountain and reread it. I still
couldn’t write about his death. The Red House also went into the box.
There were three more people for me to see at the agency. I saw more of their
receptionists than I saw of my friends.
After five interviews in six weeks, they'd make a decision next week, they said.
I picked up a man in a store and brought him to my living room sofa. I didn't want
him in my bed. I didn't give him my phone number. I never told him my last name.
I interviewed for two other positions: overqualified; underqualified.
Need to escape temporary work added desperation to my hope to find my next
employer.
I couldn't turn another page of the book I was reading. I couldn't watch another
movie. Fighting the tension of waiting was exhausting. This couldn’t continue much
longer.
I didn’t get the job.













CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR









The whir of ceiling fans dominated music that sounded like Mozart.
I had to write something, even if only a description of the weather. I closed my
eyes.
Mellow lilting strings and horns, free and open, conjured a country road wending its
way through fields golden-green behind ancient trees, running like a worn tire through a
small antiquated town, spinning out back into farmland sided by undulating telephone
poles that divided clusters of farm buildings.
The blur of the countryside focused on a wood frame white house, and then
another close by, a dower house, it became.
The next day, Tom Fowler came into the story. He was wakened in the night by the
sound of the dower house exploding. Tom's brother George and his family were in that
house; Tom's best friend and last blood relative was in that house, burning. Trapped. Dead.
Describing the inferno took me into a kind of intensity that relieved and calmed
deep points of pressure within me, planting purpose and direction in my days, and a seed
of self-respect. I was an artist again.
Tom's story should sell. It would give my book a better chance.
Again and again I read the description of fire, adding words, taking others away,
finding sentences to replace paragraphs, improving my translation of destruction. At last
I poured a glass of wine and sat with Tom's story on the green velvet sofa, reading it as a
reader; pencils were on the desk.
Shards of metal sliced the ceiling, loosing flaming rockets to feed on aged wood and torch the first floor ; flames licked lace curtains, doilies, rag rugs.
Arms of fire lengthened, grasping the house, raiding its contents, its very structure, scorching then charring then turning to ash horsehair chairs and love seats, hand-hewn oak furniture. Papered walls blistered before they billowed into smoke.
In the heat of its night, the fire melted sconces and chandeliers, the pop of shattering bulbs nearly drowned by its blazing hunger. In a burning hurry, the orange-yellow light centered by red-edged blue raced up the stairs that fell before the onslaught.
Streaking wild and voracious past the landing, the fire scooped the rug, table and chair into its maw, lusting for the soft flesh on the second floor.
Coils of smoke reached Christopher, three, and snuffed out his life before he awoke.
His sister Nattie, seven, wasn’t as lucky. Wakened by a sound mysteriously like rain storming inside the house, Nattie ventured from bed. In the hall and before she could cry out, a great fist of fire knocked her down and ravished her to the bone.
Crackles, hisses, snaps chanted songs of the underworld in a mad rush down the hall.
George Fowler's gasp woke Jenny.
Fire blazed into their room, lapped at the patchwork quilt; it reached for them with its deadly embrace.
A terrible scream ripped through the night and howled in the room where Tom Fowler had been sleeping a thousand feet away. The voice of torment dwindled as the hot flash fired nightclothes, searing flesh like a satanic caress before ravaging the rest.
As I sipped wine, a cold sense of peace settled within me. The words vented feelings, made them tangible, made them control chaos and life and death.
Although I always fell in love with everything I wrote, to the best of my subjective
and imbalanced opinion, Tom’s was a powerful story. Not once had I been tempted to
change a word.
I took wine and cigarettes to the desk, turned on the typewriter.
Tom raced out of his house in his shorts and halted when he felt the heat of the
fire. His friend Joe entered the story with the arrival of the fire department.
I was glad to have Tom Fowler to think about as my back bent to the drudgery of
not temporary enough labor.
The fact I was creative again made waking easier.
I tried not to think about my life's work sitting in another agent's office.
Tom decided to leave home, against his friend Joe's advice.
The morning after the fire, Tom headed down Wisconsin toward Chicago.
The road to the expressway was dark in the country night, as was the sky behind the stars. Distant towns ahead lifted the shades of night along the horizon.
The expressway was near.
Tom was going to fall in love, I told Susan, and Dr. Moline. Maybe in Chicago, I wasn't sure. He might go west.
Awareness of the agent who had Journey, and of the cancers that had my parents,
hung in my mind, a billboard obscured by writing.
Tom entered the nearly empty expressway and pressed his right foot down on the accelerator, pressing till it hit the floor of his sports car. He watched the revolutions as the speedometer pointed to eighty, ninety, ninety-nine.
He eased back his foot, not wanting to push the old car too far for too long.
He stared blindly into the paralleling cones of light from the car’s headlights tunneling into the darkness. He blinked his tearless eyes at the vision of charred remains superimposed on his thoughts.
Racing through the night, Tom again saw fire, white-hot red-tipped fingers shooting into the sky — dead ahead.
A once shiny petrol tanker had jackknifed across the expressway. Its blaze lit the scene like daylight.
Frost coated Tom's mind, his skin, chilling then freezing then numbing his body by inches.
His foot flattened the accelerator. His hands, veins rigid and protruding, locked onto the steering wheel.
"George!" Tom screamed just before impact.
I hadn't known Tom was going to die.
I sat in the chair and stared at the black type on white paper. I'd never be able to
crash my car. Pills were my way out. But Tom's way was faster and one hundred
percent sure.
It wouldn't be long till my stash of pills reached a lethal dose.
* * *
Susan was shocked by Tom's suicide. Dr. Moline didn't express surprise, but he
asked to read the story, and he suggested antidepressants.
I was fine, not happy, but