The Onset

Part 6(Michael's POV)

June 25th 2015. What have I done! Earlier today in the safety office, the security guard watched me diligently. His eyes were fixed on me for almost the entire time. I have never been in this kind of predicament before. Being the center of attention, especially in matters pertaining to security, is totally new to me. I was careful not to make any sudden movements. Finally, I could hear the angry pitter-patter of my mother’s feet before she came through the door and signaled at me with great authority to follow her. I got a good understanding of what was in store for me at home when she gave me a very strong look of contempt as we were getting into the car. Not much was said in the car on the way back home with the exception of mom telling me I would never see Dr. Akins again or any ‘shrink’, for that matter.

When we got home, mom immediately motioned to me to take a seat on the living room couch. She remained standing, leaning against the wall opposite me with her arms folded, and gave me a very stern look. I began speaking to her in a way so as not to anger her further:

“Mom, I don’t think it’s a bad idea if we do what Dr. Akins suggests, just to figure out what’s going on, you know.”

She snapped at me saying, “Oh! So you value the advice of somebody you met today over the advice of your own mother!”

“Well, she’s a professional, and she seems to care.”

“Oh. Okay. So what did she say she would do for you? She gonna pay your rent when you move outta here?” she said sarcastically. “She gonna give you money?” I hunched in my seat and hung my head down. She got up close in my face. “Michael look at me. Are you playing a game? Because if you are, it’s not very amusing. Do you know what’s at stake here? Did you forget about Harvard?” She began to raise her voice. “DID YOU FORGET ABOUT YOUR SCHOLARSHIP? HUH? DID YOU?”

I said nothing. I was scared, ashamed, embarrassed. Our attention was briefly diverted to the front door as it was being unlocked. Immediately afterwards my mom backed off, leaned against the wall, and turned her head to the left. There was an almost dismal silence as Malia came in and began walking gingerly inside the house. She didn’t seem like her rambunctious self that afternoon. It was obvious she had witnessed my episode. At first, it seemed as though she would head straight to the foot of the stairs and up to her room. However, looking thoughtful for a moment, she stopped right behind the sofa on which I was seated, laid her hand on the headrest, and asked mom if everything was okay.

“Everything’s fine! Just dealing with a situation!” mom responded brusquely. We both looked at her with staggered expressions for moment. I for one was uneased by her agitated disposition.

“Everything okay, Genius?” Malia asked with her hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” I said glumly. It wasn’t true of course, but we exchanged weak smiles, and she gave me heartening rub on my back before going upstairs. My mom’s eyes followed her as she went up. The moment she heard Malia’s bedroom door close shut, she turned her face to me again with that fiery stern look.

“You’re coming with me to Creedmoor this weekend,” she said, “and you’ll see what could happen to you when you let them put that psychiatry bullshit on you.”

On Saturday, I saw where my mom worked for the first time, Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital. As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, I got the impression of a monolithic and ominous structure. It was as if I was looking upwards at Frankenstein’s face. In my mind, I estimated it to be about fifteen stories at its highest point and covering many acres. As we went through the lobby and up to the unit my mom worked in, it was the same thing from the security guards to the maintenance people to the nurses:

“Oh! Is this Michael?” they would ask.

“Yep, this is my son.” mom would say.

“Pleased to meet you Michael. We’ve heard so much about you! Your mother loves you very much.”

“Yeah, I know.” I would say weakly.

“So what brings you here today, Michael?” I barely had an opportunity to respond before my mom cut in with a lie:

“He’s thinking of becoming a physician so he asked me if he could come to get a glimpse of how it’s like.” Then they would discourage me from working in psychiatry and instead become a dentist or a podiatrist or something like that. “Yeah, he’s got an idea of how it is.” my mom would say. “I talk to him and Malia about it sometimes.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know about it.” they would say. “Well, Michael, it was nice to meet you. Keep up the good work; we’re all rooting for you.” It was more or less the same thing with all of them.

Once we reached the unit, mom told me she had to go into the back office for the morning meeting and that I couldn’t attend because they would be discussing confidential patient information. I was a little worried about being left in the unit alone, but she assured me that there was plenty of security in the hospital. Right before she ducked into the back, we ran into a patient. He was a dark skinned man perhaps in his sixties or seventies with snow-white hair. I noticed that mom gave him a very careful look before greeting him and ducking into the back office. I was left there with the patient. He looked at me with his piercing, unsettling eyes. Unsure of exactly what to do, I introduced myself:

“Hi, how ya doin’?” I said, extending my hand. “My name’s Michael. What’s your’s?” The patient didn’t shake it. His arms remained crossed behind his back.

“You know who I am.” The patient said, as if I actually did.

“I do?”

“Yeah, I worked for the mafia for thirty years!” he said proudly while pounding his chest. “I was John Gotti’s right hand man. Everybody knows that.” I paused for a moment. From this point, I was careful with my words.

“So, in what capacity did you work for him?”

“I killed over three billion people for him!” And at this my jaw dropped. However, once he said that, I was ninety-nine percent confident that statement wasn’t true.

“Really?”

“Yeah!” I was curious to see how much this man believed what he was saying was true:

“Okay, so, there are about six billion people in the world. And you’re telling me you killed off half the world’s population in thirty years?”

“Yup.”

“Uh-hm.” I said, still being highly skeptical of course. We looked at each other for a good moment before his head began to veer towards a window in a bedroom that was next to where we were standing. I looked in the same direction.

“You see that plane in the sky out there?” the patient said pointing to the window.

“Yeah.” I said, taking notice.

“On that plane is people from the mafia, on their way to kill people.” I turned to face him once again, and looked at him very incredulously.

As soon as the staff were done with their meeting, I approached mom and told her what I had heard.

“Mom, you’re not gonna believe what that guy told me in the hallway.” She was working on the computer. She smiled and laughed lightly while still focused on her work.

“Oh Yeah? Try me.”

“He said he whacked three billion people for the mafia!”

“I know that. He’s been saying that on the unit for over three years.”

“Three years?” I said, astounded.

“Yep.” I stuttered and stammered for a good moment before finally figuring out something to say:

“W-w-well doesn’t he get medication?”

“Of course, everybody takes medication here. It’s a psych ward. The thing you gotta understand is, that if you tell yourself something often enough, medication or not, you will believe it.” I stood there, bewildered. I had experienced a profound epiphany. It was disturbing. For me, at least. It was apparent my mother didn’t feel the same way. She just went on with her work. I soon fell into a depression and realized the environment was contributing to this.

I told her with an air of desperation in my voice, “I’ve got to get out of here!”

“You can wait for me at the park across the street. Sit at one of the tables next to the playground. I’ll be off in a couple of hours.”

I sat at the table in front of the park playground. I was reading my book very passively. I couldn’t help thinking of what that man in the ward must’ve went through during his life. What could cause someone to have such delusions? Surely if the things he was saying were true, he would be somewhere else, not a psych ward. Maybe it was better for mom to be indifferent to this man’s situation. Maybe it is healthier to take it as a joke. Just laugh it off. But that’s just terrible. Being cooped up somewhere for three years because reality has eluded you. How unfortunate for this man. All of a sudden, mom sat at the table. She didn’t greet me. She just sat across from me and started recounting an odd story:

“I want to tell you something about my sperm donor that I never told you before.” I put my book to the side. She had my full attention. “I call him ‘sperm donor’ because he proved himself to be too inadequate to be called your father. About a year after you were born, and I was pregnant with Malia, my sperm donor started to have depression, you know, ‘whiny syndrome’.” Interesting choice of words, I thought. “At the time I was still in school and he was working for minimum wage, so it was very difficult to get by, and he whined so much. So he decided to see a psychiatrist. He was diagnosed and was given pills. He became worse. So he went back to his doctor, the doctor gave him something else. He became even more worse. Then he went to someone else to get a second opinion, and that doctor diagnosed him with anxiety disorder and gave him something for that...by this time he became so whiny I almost couldn’t stand it. Always saying how life was terrible, and how he wanted to kill himself.” By this time I was fully engrossed in the story. I had an inkling that I was about to hear something terrible and tragic. “One day he said those magic words to a cop. So he was hospitalized. Was there for about a month. When he got out he had lost his job...One day he disappeared. I made a report with the police. And when the police found him three days later, I felt as if I had been given the biggest F-you that I had gotten in my entire life.”

“What was that?” I asked urgently. She looked to her left and seemed to be holding back some very intense emotion. “What is it mom? Tell me!” “That weak bastard.” she muttered to herself.

“If I knew what I knew now. I would’ve told him: ‘man-up’”

“What do you mean?” I had an inkling, but was very eager for her to come out and say it so I could be sure. Finally, she did come out with it, very loudly:

“Michael, he checked out! And I’m still pissed off about it!” I was shocked. At this point tears started to stream down her face. There was a long pause, as I looked down at the table very crestfallen. She took out some tissues from her handbag and blew her nose.

“I didn’t know.” I said, overwhelmed and reeling from what had just been revealed to me. “Mom, I’m sorry.” Then, after building up the courage to look her in the face, I solemnly swore to her, “I’ll try my best to be better. I promise I’ll try.” She didn’t say anything. She just gave me a disdainful frown, eyes squinty. I had never felt so uncomfortable as I did at that moment. Strands of her hair were wispy in the wind. She seemed so weathered, so gnarled. She got up abruptly and headed for the parking lot. I got up and followed her.