Call Me Crazy

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I am White Mountain Apache, son of the former Tribe Chief. I did not ask for this role, but I play it willingly. Spirits have attacked my family, and it falls to me to drive them away. I wish I had the wisdom of my grandmother or the patience of my grandfather. Lately, all I feel is restlessness.

“Trey, where is your mind?” My grandmother asks me. I blink twice to clear my head as I stand in front of the kitchen sink. I’ve turned the faucet on to wash my hands and hadn’t realized I was simply standing there, lost in thought with my hands held under the warm rush of water.

I turn the water off and dry my hands. My grandmother is a small woman, especially compared to my six-foot-three frame. She barely reaches my chest, but she is as hard as bedrock, made from the earth itself. She smells of soil and leather. Her deeply lined face tells countless stories of our heritage. Grandmother’s name is traditional Apache, Bly Swift, meaning Tall Child. Her hair is dark, sprinkled with strands of gray falling in a single braid down her back. Her high cheekbones and straight nose speak of the pride of our ancient people. Though more than a century has passed since the time of our ancestors, she still practices the old ways and lives according to tribe law.

“Sorry Shichu, I’m just thinking about mom. She will have been transferred already and I need to go see her.”

I have been doing my best to keep it together. I know I need to be strong for my grandmother, but each day seems to weigh on me a little more than the last. Her eyes soften as she looks at me and I can see the worry hiding behind them.

“You bear so much on your shoulders for one so young,” she says.

I smile at her as she reaches up and tucks my long black hair behind my ear. While I usually keep it in the same traditional single braid down my back, I haven’t bothered with it this morning.

“I guess it’s a good thing I was given such broad shoulders then,” I tease.

“Even the strongest tree must learn to bend with the wind, for if they do not, eventually, even their great trunks will crack and come crashing down. The branches, which had relied on the tree’s great strength, come crashing down with it.” My Shichu often speaks in metaphors to impart wisdom. Most of the time, I wish she would just speak plainly and tell me the direction I should go. But I know how she would respond. Just as a mother bird cannot fly for her babies, neither could she walk my path for me.

“I hear you, Grandmother,” I tell her. “I’m going to go and check on her now. Do you want to come?”

She shakes her head. “I will go later. You need to spend some time with her and remember she loves you. She is just not able to get her mouth to tell you what is hiding in her mind.”

I give her a quick hug and then head out to my beat-up old truck. Ugly it may be, but it gets me where I need to go, and it beats walking any day.

As I pull into a parking spot, I look up at the foreboding building in front of me. The sign on the dry, dead grass of the front lawn declares it to be Mercy Psychiatric Facility. I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of mercy they were hoping to impart with such a depressing first impression. Staring at it was making me depressed, and I imagine they might have a few patients who had admitted themselves after simply driving by and feeling the despair of this place crash over them.

I try to shake off the gloom as I climb out of my truck and remind myself things aren’t always what they seem. For all I know, the inside might be warm and inviting. Not likely, but I was trying to be positive. I walk into the entrance of the building. I try not to cuss my own stupidity for wanting to believe the inside might be better than the outside. The foyer was as drab as I had expected. The stale air holds a hint of disinfectant and the lingering aroma of what must have been a terribly greasy breakfast. As I look up, I see the word INFORMATION above a desk directly across from the front doors. I move toward the chubby woman who occupies the seat beneath it. Her name badge unceremoniously declares her to be Mildred, Front Desk Staff. Her white hair is twisted into a tight bun, and she wears thick glasses with pointed ends, vintage 1950, I’m betting. The bright pink lipstick painted across her narrow mouth is slightly smudged, and the blush on her cheeks makes the rest of her aged face appear grey by comparison. She looks up at me and smiles. It’s a sweet smile, even if the teeth she reveals are crooked and yellow with age. There is a gentleness in her eyes that reveals the kind spirit encased inside.

“Hello,” she says in a sweet, grandmotherly tone. “How can I help you, son?”

I catch a whiff of her perfume as she shifts in her chair. I try not to cough as the musky scent assails my nose and burns my eyes.

“I’m here to see my mother,” I croak. “She should have been transferred here earlier today.”

“What is her name, dear?” Mildred asks as she begins poking the keyboard in front of her with one hand. Her eyes stay on the computer screen as she waits for my answer.

“Lolotea Swift.”

Her fingers move with surprising speed across the keys, and the clicking of them seems to echo in the quiet foyer.

“Mm-hmm, yes, yes, I see.” She mutters to herself. Finally, after several more taps, she looks up at me with the same sweet smile.

“She did arrive and has been all settled in her room. According to her schedule, right now she should be in the recreation hall. Just sign in here,” she points to a clipboard. I sign my name and hand her back her pen. Mildred swivels in her seat and points down a hallway to the right. “If you will follow that hallway and then take the first right, you will run straight into the rec hall.”

I give her my thanks and head off in the direction she indicated. I begin to hear the soft hum of murmuring as I draw closer to the end of the hallway. Just before I turn to go down the next corridor, I take a steadying breath and steel myself for what I might encounter.

I had last seen my mother almost a week ago. She had been so thin her bones protruded from her face. Her eyes were sunken in their sockets, and her hair was dull and limp. She was slowly wasting away as the disease that plagued her mind began to eat away at her body as well. She had been diagnosed with schizophrenia three years previously, after my grandmother and I had begun to realize she was seeing things and talking to people who weren’t really there. At first, she had refused to see a doctor. But after the first suicide attempt, she finally relented. Since then, it had been an ongoing battle to keep her rational. There were good days and bad. She had been on many different medications, but the doctor she had been seeing couldn’t find a combination that worked for her.

He’d told me the disease affects each person differently, just as any other disease might. Though there were similarities, each mind was as unique as the body that held it. So, after three years of unsuccessful treatments, he had finally suggested we put her in a psychiatric hospital where they could monitor her behavior and, hopefully, in the controlled environment, find a combination of drugs that would work. None of us wanted that.

But the decision was taken out of my hands when I had found her in her bathroom floor, cutting her legs. Blood had pooled around her on the white tile floor as she mumbled incoherently. I had asked her why she was doing it, and she had told me that a kind man had told her she needed to get the bad blood out of her body. That had been a week ago. After she recovered, it was clear the hospital wasn’t going to release her back to my care. They wanted to send her to a psychiatric facility. And now I agreed with their assessment. Hopefully, this facility could help.

I finally turn the corner and see, just a few feet down, the open double doors that lead into the rec room. As I slowly push past the doors, I stop and scan the room, searching for my mother. The large room is just as white as the foyer. The harsh fluorescent lighting does nothing to alleviate the starkness. I see a unique mixture of people. Some are dressed in common hospital gowns or pants, while others are wearing normal casual clothing. Several of the patients pace restlessly muttering under their breaths and occasionally pointing at nothing in particular. A few sit around tables and color in children’s books. Others stare out the barred windows.

I blow out a breath as I finally locate my mother in the furthest left–hand corner of the room. She is sitting in a rocking chair, back against the wall, facing the room. Her unusually light brown eyes are glazed over. She stares down at her hands, which twitch nervously. She isn’t a small woman, standing five foot six inches, though the disease that ensnares her mind seems to have withered her body as well. Her long dark hair, peppered with silver, is done in a braid and lays over her shoulder, the wisps that have escaped frame her troubled face. As I start in her direction, my attention is caught briefly by movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn my head, only to catch a glimpse of short pink-streaked blond hair dropping below the table as the owner of the hair kneels down. My mind gets a brief impression of a scared groundhog ducking for cover. I am intrigued by the behavior, not to mention the hair, but my attention is needed elsewhere, so I turn back toward my mother.

When I reach her, I kneel down so that I can be eye level and wait for her to look at me. When she doesn’t acknowledge me, I speak up. “Hey mom,” I say gently not wanting to startle her if she hasn’t realized I am there. “How are you doing?”

At the sound of my voice, she finally looks up. Her eyes meet mine and I internally shutter at the hopelessness that has taken root inside of her. She reaches up with a boney hand and pats my cheek.

“You’re a good boy.” Her voice is hoarse and weak, and as she drops her hand, she lets out a sigh that testifies as to just how much strength it takes for her to complete the simple action.

“Can I get anything for you?”

She shakes her head slowly. “You should just go, Trey.”

My chest tightens at the use of my name. It feels like forever since she has spoken it.

“There is nothing for you here,” she continues, “but death.”

“Don’t say that Lo,” I use the shortened version of her name that my grandmother used to use when she needed to be stern with her daughter. “You are here, and you are going to get better, and I’m going to be here for you.”

I see her eyes start to fill with tears, and for the millionth time since her life had begun to unravel, I wish I could take it all from her. I wish that I could bear her burden so that she would smile again.

“It is I who should be there for you. What sort of mother leaves her son to fend for himself? Your grandfather would be ashamed that I have let the spirits take over.”

“It isn’t the spirits mother. It’s an illness; that is all. You haven’t done anything wrong.” It is a common argument between us. My mother believes, like most in my tribe, that we are in control of our own bodies, and it is up to us to keep the evil spirits from meddling with us. Too many of the members of our tribe believe that my mother’s condition is of her own making because of weakness. They love her, don’t mistake that, but they still believe in the old ways. It was hard to leave our tribe, but it was necessary.

“You’re a good boy,” she tells me again, though she doesn’t pat my face this time. I see her eyes glaze back over and know that my time with her for the day is over. She has retreated back inside to the world that only she knows, one where I cannot go.