The Bottom Is First : Once Upon A Time In My Life - Part 7
I'm released from the hospital, once again, with no fanfare. This time I get a free cab ride back to Brighton Avenue and Apartment 404. The first thing I can think of to do is get drunk. I drive down to the Shaw's in Scarborough to buy my meal and booze for the night. They are playing Britney Spears "I Go Crazy" over the PA system, which pisses me off. She had been on a recent cover of Newsweek magazine, drunk and high, which prompted me to call them up and cancel my subscription. A few days later Spears had shaved her head and I, another famous person being harassed by lesser beings, felt her pain and self hatred, and everyone knew of my sympathy for this woman. The music coming over the loudspeakers of Shaw's was a taunt directed at me and her, a sign that there were still many enemies to be dealt with here in Maine and in so many other places. My anger boiling, I could barely look at the girl checking out my groceries. They were all in on it, all the employees of this store, and were all to be held in contempt. How dare they hold up my girl Brit and me to ridicule. Jealousy, pure and simple.
I meet my new pdoc soon after at McGeachey Hall. He wants to have a session with me and my mom. She arrives in Portland and we go to the appointment. The pdoc starts talking and I get more and more angry with him and his accusatory tone. He is treating me like just another patient, and he is not a good listener. I decide to test him, see if I can rattle him. I raise my voice: "You can't do this to me! You have no idea, man! Fuck this whole deal." Maybe I don't make much sense, but I'm trying to take control of the situation. My mother looks at me in horror, and she starts to rub both of her thumbs and forefingers together as she holds her hands off to either side of her chair. "That's a tell, Mom! That means I shouldn't trust you! Don't you know anything about body language?" My mom's nervous habits are a sign that something bad is going to happen. The pdoc leaves the room for a few minutes, as the electricity coarses through my head, body and limbs. This is truly awesome! This is exciting! Minutes pass, the pdoc returns, and I am asked to move to the lobby of the second floor, where two cops stand. There are staffers of McGeachey milling about, looking me up and down. Man, have they not ever seen a brutha getting fucked over? I'm wired and feeling good, feeling powerful. I know the drill, though; the cops take me to the Maine Medical Center ER, where I will be "evaluated" and sent back to fucking Spring Harbor again. It's a bit of a relief when the adrenaline high wears off. Maybe now I can get more than three hours sleep.
My ideas of the military being in charge of my care have mysteriously begun to fade a little bit. I've been in Spring Harbor so many times and have dealt with so many of the staff for years that I KNOW they aren't military. They're just working stiffs like I wish I was, and many of them I feel a real love and affection for. No, they don't scare me. I know they mean well.
So it's back to "The Harbor", as the staff call it. None of the patients use this overly familiar phrase. We just call it "the hospital" or use its full name. I have a new pdoc to replace the old, hated Doctor H, who clearly requested to not work with me again. The bitch. This new pdoc is a kind, tall and lean man who always wears crisp white shirts, the kind I used to wear years ago when I had an actual suit and tie job. This man thinks before he speaks, seems to listen to my ramblings, and I like him right away. He suggests shock therapy as a way to help me get out from under the anxiety and depression I have been feeling for so long. Anything. Anything you want, doc.
I have undergone several rounds of shock therapy in the last fifteen years, none of which ever helped. I'm not sure why my new pdoc wants to try it again, but we do it anyway. I am brought from Spring Harbor's location to the main campus of Maine Medical Center in downtown Portland for the first of a half dozen or so treatments. The staffer accompanying me over wears dark dress pants with a bright red t shirt, a jarringly goofy sight that lets me know he's just another dude doing his job, not a marine or soldier or anyone to worry about. My familiarity with the staff of the hospital has greatly reduced my fears.
We arrive at MMC early, about 7am. The nurses are so very friendly, so very professional. I am a lucky man to have such kind people caring for me. They hook me up to an IV, get me ready for surgery. I lay down on the hospital bed. They wheel me into the operating room, where half a dozen or so busy folks are preparing. The doctor tells me I am about to fall asleep. I'm asked to count backwards from ten. "Ten...nine....eight...sev." Awaking what could be days, weeks, or minutes later, I don't know where I am, but come out of the sleep slowly. I am safe. I am alive and OK. After downing some fluids I'm brought back to Spring Harbor, where no one seems to have missed me. Why do I feel like just another person, another patient? I miss being important. I miss being the star. But this feeling of anonymity; maybe I could get used to this, too.
The procedure is repeated several times and my pdoc decides I can return home. A cab brings me there, and I am feeling good and thankful to be back in ol' number 404. So I decide to go to Hannaford's to buy a night's worth of food and booze. I sit down in the front seat of my Corolla and wonder what to do next. How does this thing start? Why aren't we moving? I think of the key in my hand; I know it must be "turned" somehow to start the engine and after several awkward seconds of looking for somewhere to insert it find the key hole. The engine starts. I back out of my spot and pull out on to Holm street. Nothing looks familiar. I turn on to Brighton, into heavy traffic. How do I make the car slow down? Somehow I stop at the light. How do I make the car go faster? Somehow I accelerate and keep up with traffic. Am I supposed to be on the right side of the road or the left? Those cars approaching in the opposite direction look like they're going too fast and could run smack into me. I am scared but strangely disinterested in what is going on. I am quickly lost. I pull over to a small, friendly looking house and knock on the door. "Hello, I have forgotten how to drive. Can you help me?"
Somehow the woman who answered the door understands my need for compassion. She calls the police, they tell her someone will be by to pick me up in a few moments. The biggest, blackest fucking limo I've ever seen pulls up not three minutes later. "I was just in the neighborhood and heard you needed a ride, bud." Is this divine intervention? The interior is a letdown, as the paint is peeling and there is a smell of stale beer and BO wafting upwards. But this is a heck of a time for my first limo ride, and I am pleased. Moments later the limo drops me off at my apartment building and I magically have the fifty bucks to pay the man.
This is a good night to get drunk. I buy a case of Bud Light, knowing what is in store for me. Along with the bottle of prescribed Ativan I know I will be having a good time. After the third or fourth beer and pill I blackout. The scattered images that remain of that night: "I love to drink!" yelled at my cat. "Alls I need are beer and good porn and ESPN!", also screamed at Hank, my cat. A sideways view of the floor just outside my front door, as I had hit my head after a corkscrew fall on to the carpet. I lose my keys, that or someone takes them away from me, as I wake up the next morning without them. I am lying on my beat up old brown couch, the comfortable one I simply can't part with. What a fucking night. This shit ain't working. The pain in my head is searing and I don't know what to do next.
I moved into this apartment in the summer of 2004. The first night I was here, warm, with summer breezes blowing through the three open windows, I could hear the staffers of the old age home next door talking about me. These discussions continued for the next three years. How could they be so blatant, so open about discussing what a creep, what a psycho, what a god I was? I could never understand their arrogance, hatred and jealousy.
But today, in the summer of 2007, I cannot hear their voices anymore. There is silence in Apartment 404, for the very first time since I arrived. They have all decided to leave me alone, or maybe I was always alone. The sprinkler system that serves as a camera and microphone in all three rooms of my place (living room, bedroom and worst of all, bathroom), could it be that it's just a sprinkler head? That there is no one here, no one watching me? This idea is attractive and repulsive at the same time. If no one is watching me, do I matter? Like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. And I certainly want to matter. I feel a great sadness at the thought. No one cares. I can die today, tonight, and the army won't care. The government won't have any regrets. All the famous people I have been interacting with for years will be unawares.
So I retreat to my bed. I've got some thinking to do.
I meet my new pdoc soon after at McGeachey Hall. He wants to have a session with me and my mom. She arrives in Portland and we go to the appointment. The pdoc starts talking and I get more and more angry with him and his accusatory tone. He is treating me like just another patient, and he is not a good listener. I decide to test him, see if I can rattle him. I raise my voice: "You can't do this to me! You have no idea, man! Fuck this whole deal." Maybe I don't make much sense, but I'm trying to take control of the situation. My mother looks at me in horror, and she starts to rub both of her thumbs and forefingers together as she holds her hands off to either side of her chair. "That's a tell, Mom! That means I shouldn't trust you! Don't you know anything about body language?" My mom's nervous habits are a sign that something bad is going to happen. The pdoc leaves the room for a few minutes, as the electricity coarses through my head, body and limbs. This is truly awesome! This is exciting! Minutes pass, the pdoc returns, and I am asked to move to the lobby of the second floor, where two cops stand. There are staffers of McGeachey milling about, looking me up and down. Man, have they not ever seen a brutha getting fucked over? I'm wired and feeling good, feeling powerful. I know the drill, though; the cops take me to the Maine Medical Center ER, where I will be "evaluated" and sent back to fucking Spring Harbor again. It's a bit of a relief when the adrenaline high wears off. Maybe now I can get more than three hours sleep.
My ideas of the military being in charge of my care have mysteriously begun to fade a little bit. I've been in Spring Harbor so many times and have dealt with so many of the staff for years that I KNOW they aren't military. They're just working stiffs like I wish I was, and many of them I feel a real love and affection for. No, they don't scare me. I know they mean well.
So it's back to "The Harbor", as the staff call it. None of the patients use this overly familiar phrase. We just call it "the hospital" or use its full name. I have a new pdoc to replace the old, hated Doctor H, who clearly requested to not work with me again. The bitch. This new pdoc is a kind, tall and lean man who always wears crisp white shirts, the kind I used to wear years ago when I had an actual suit and tie job. This man thinks before he speaks, seems to listen to my ramblings, and I like him right away. He suggests shock therapy as a way to help me get out from under the anxiety and depression I have been feeling for so long. Anything. Anything you want, doc.
I have undergone several rounds of shock therapy in the last fifteen years, none of which ever helped. I'm not sure why my new pdoc wants to try it again, but we do it anyway. I am brought from Spring Harbor's location to the main campus of Maine Medical Center in downtown Portland for the first of a half dozen or so treatments. The staffer accompanying me over wears dark dress pants with a bright red t shirt, a jarringly goofy sight that lets me know he's just another dude doing his job, not a marine or soldier or anyone to worry about. My familiarity with the staff of the hospital has greatly reduced my fears.
We arrive at MMC early, about 7am. The nurses are so very friendly, so very professional. I am a lucky man to have such kind people caring for me. They hook me up to an IV, get me ready for surgery. I lay down on the hospital bed. They wheel me into the operating room, where half a dozen or so busy folks are preparing. The doctor tells me I am about to fall asleep. I'm asked to count backwards from ten. "Ten...nine....eight...sev." Awaking what could be days, weeks, or minutes later, I don't know where I am, but come out of the sleep slowly. I am safe. I am alive and OK. After downing some fluids I'm brought back to Spring Harbor, where no one seems to have missed me. Why do I feel like just another person, another patient? I miss being important. I miss being the star. But this feeling of anonymity; maybe I could get used to this, too.
The procedure is repeated several times and my pdoc decides I can return home. A cab brings me there, and I am feeling good and thankful to be back in ol' number 404. So I decide to go to Hannaford's to buy a night's worth of food and booze. I sit down in the front seat of my Corolla and wonder what to do next. How does this thing start? Why aren't we moving? I think of the key in my hand; I know it must be "turned" somehow to start the engine and after several awkward seconds of looking for somewhere to insert it find the key hole. The engine starts. I back out of my spot and pull out on to Holm street. Nothing looks familiar. I turn on to Brighton, into heavy traffic. How do I make the car slow down? Somehow I stop at the light. How do I make the car go faster? Somehow I accelerate and keep up with traffic. Am I supposed to be on the right side of the road or the left? Those cars approaching in the opposite direction look like they're going too fast and could run smack into me. I am scared but strangely disinterested in what is going on. I am quickly lost. I pull over to a small, friendly looking house and knock on the door. "Hello, I have forgotten how to drive. Can you help me?"
Somehow the woman who answered the door understands my need for compassion. She calls the police, they tell her someone will be by to pick me up in a few moments. The biggest, blackest fucking limo I've ever seen pulls up not three minutes later. "I was just in the neighborhood and heard you needed a ride, bud." Is this divine intervention? The interior is a letdown, as the paint is peeling and there is a smell of stale beer and BO wafting upwards. But this is a heck of a time for my first limo ride, and I am pleased. Moments later the limo drops me off at my apartment building and I magically have the fifty bucks to pay the man.
This is a good night to get drunk. I buy a case of Bud Light, knowing what is in store for me. Along with the bottle of prescribed Ativan I know I will be having a good time. After the third or fourth beer and pill I blackout. The scattered images that remain of that night: "I love to drink!" yelled at my cat. "Alls I need are beer and good porn and ESPN!", also screamed at Hank, my cat. A sideways view of the floor just outside my front door, as I had hit my head after a corkscrew fall on to the carpet. I lose my keys, that or someone takes them away from me, as I wake up the next morning without them. I am lying on my beat up old brown couch, the comfortable one I simply can't part with. What a fucking night. This shit ain't working. The pain in my head is searing and I don't know what to do next.
I moved into this apartment in the summer of 2004. The first night I was here, warm, with summer breezes blowing through the three open windows, I could hear the staffers of the old age home next door talking about me. These discussions continued for the next three years. How could they be so blatant, so open about discussing what a creep, what a psycho, what a god I was? I could never understand their arrogance, hatred and jealousy.
But today, in the summer of 2007, I cannot hear their voices anymore. There is silence in Apartment 404, for the very first time since I arrived. They have all decided to leave me alone, or maybe I was always alone. The sprinkler system that serves as a camera and microphone in all three rooms of my place (living room, bedroom and worst of all, bathroom), could it be that it's just a sprinkler head? That there is no one here, no one watching me? This idea is attractive and repulsive at the same time. If no one is watching me, do I matter? Like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. And I certainly want to matter. I feel a great sadness at the thought. No one cares. I can die today, tonight, and the army won't care. The government won't have any regrets. All the famous people I have been interacting with for years will be unawares.
So I retreat to my bed. I've got some thinking to do.
posted by joe sweeney at 4:33 AM
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