Copyright © Richard Allen Gutierrez, 2011
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Safe
Richard Allen inspi’ John Allen (Rumbling Heart)
The following is Chapter 5 from the book Rumbling Heart by Richard Allen. The full novel is available at all major online eBook outlets.
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Early in my life I was held back in school. My grandmother died at an early age and from what I was told, I had serious problems letting her go. My brittle state was further compromised by a terrible accident I had when I was twelve years old. My cousin, trying to portray a professional wrestler from a television show, got me in a headlock and slammed my skull into my bedroom floor, knocking me unconscious. I woke up and people were all around me, and my body had been convulsing wildly. One of the first things I realized when I came to was I couldn’t control my body. I remember trying to move my arms and my legs, but nothing seemed to function properly.
I was taken to a hospital by ambulance. The date was December 20th 1990. I remember this because 5 days later on Christmas day, after a battery of tests and days of observation, I was finally released from the hospital. The doctors said I was fine; however I knew that I wasn’t. I felt incredibly weak and still had a massive headache even with pain medication, and for some reason I was having a terrible time remembering who some people and places were. Not wanting to cause any problems for my mother, for years, I kept this to myself.
The truth is when I was finally taken home, I, at first, did not recognize my own house. Something kept prodding my mind, telling me I had some connection to that place, but it just didn’t compute. Luckily, I did remember my mother. The connection to my other family members came back to me a day after I had been in the hospital. My biological father, whom I was later told was there in the emergency room with me, I did not remember till about the third day.
The days after my release were mostly sleepless and when I did managed to slumber, my dreams were riddled with horrific images, nightmares that kept my mind restless and peppered with anxiety. I kept seeing shadowy figures and what appeared to be devils chasing me and asking me for my soul as I ran from them, and each dream I was eventually caught while trying to flee. I could feel them devouring my flesh and tearing away parts of my body as I screamed in agony and cried for help. Each night the dream would come to haunt my thoughts and each morning I’d wake up as I felt their severing teeth pierce my face and neck, as if they were vampires looking for a quick meal. The dreams continued without relent, and each time the devils would catch me and tear my body apart for their own amusement. For weeks, I was consumed nightly and after a spell, I felt as if I were losing my mind. Even at that young age I felt that dying didn’t seem like such a bad thing. I thought to myself that if I were being eaten by demons on a nightly basis that somehow it would eventually become my fate; that is until a small figure came in and took me away from them.
On what was becoming an average night for me, I was once again being pursued by the demons when a small figure came out of nowhere and saved me from them. As I was about to become dinner once more, a very young girl took me by the hand and ran me out into an open field and away from their clutches. As we ran, I could hear the demons as they pursued us, but the girl never relented and kept hold of my hand and never stopped running. I remember looking at her and seeing a young child with long brown hair and light, unblemished skin. She wore a yellow dress, covered with white flowers and as she ran, her dress fluttered up and down with the wind and her hair trailed behind her as yellow ribbons held firmly to her ponytails. I felt the tug of her hand and heard her gasping for breath as we ran. As we appeared to be out of reach of the demons, she turned around to me and I fell into her, and the both of us tumbled to the ground in a heap. She rolled over on top of me and covered my mouth with one of her hands, putting her finger to her lips as a way to tell me to stay quiet. As we lay there in what was a field of tall grass swaying with the night breeze, Cricket held onto me and appeared to be protecting me from the demons as they ran past us. From seemingly out of nowhere, this tiny little girl who couldn’t have been any older than 5, swooped in and saved my life.
The following morning I woke and couldn’t think of anything but the young girl in the yellow dress with the ribbons in her hair. As I sat there in bed, a strange presence took hold of my thoughts; a feeling that kept telling me that the girl who took my hand and hid me from the demons wasn’t just a dream, but was somehow a real person. I got out of bed and wiped the haziness from my eyes, then walked out of my bedroom and into the dining room where I figured my mother would be. She was sitting quietly at the dining room table reading a book, so I made my way over to her and sat down in a chair beside her. As she read, she felt my eyes on her so she looked over to me to ask if something were wrong.
“Who’s ‘Cricket?’” I asked as I continued looking her over.
“Cricket?” she said with a soft touch in her voice. “Do you remember her?”
“So she is real,” I said in a somewhat lower tone, as if I couldn’t make up my mind if I’d wanted to say it to myself or out loud.
“Yes,” said my mother. “You used to play with her when you were about 5 or 6. She was about your age I think. She came to the camp when you and I lived in Palestine.” My mother bookmarked her place in her book and set it down on the table. “Do you remember the camp?”
“What camp?” I asked.
My mother went on to tell me about a camp which was located near our old apartment in the East Texas town where I was born. Just down the road was the entrance to a small park that had a manmade lake in the center of it. On the opposite side of the river was a place called Camp Karankawa. Every summer, people from various parts of Texas and even other states would come and spend time along the lakeside for a bit of rest and relaxation. My mother told me it was quite popular because of its location which was far from most of the very large Texas cities such as Dallas and Fort Worth. While she did not recall when I first met this young girl known to us as Cricket, she told me she remembered when she first saw me with her. Cricket and I were standing by the shore of the lake, tossing in small pebbles and trying to make them skip across the surface of the water. My mother had come walking down the street to look for me as I apparently had a tendency to wander off without telling her. Each time she noticed that I’d left without telling her, she knew the first place to look for me was the lake. There with both of us grasping a handful of pebbles, my mother called out to me and I turned to look at her. Cricket also looked over as my mother’s voice and subsequent whistle carried for quite a distance.
After she introduced herself as Cricket, the young girl who ended up spending several days with me on that shore ran back to the other side of the lake as her father had begun calling for her as well, also referring to her by her nickname. As my mother spoke, small remnants of memory came back to me, but not nearly enough to appease my curiosity. Noticing that I was struggling to recall those days several years before, my mother stood up and walked to her bedroom. I followed and found her digging around in an old brown box inside her closet. After a few moments, she emerged with a stack of pictures in her hand and walked over to her bed and sat down. After thumbing through the stack of photos, my mother pulled one picture from the bunch and handed it to me. There, by an old lakeside bench that I could not remember, I stood with a handful of rocks in my hand as if I were ready to create as much mischief as possible. On my left side and grasping my arm was a tiny, light skinned little girl with brown hair and a yellow dressed with ribbons in her hair.
“I took this the day after I first saw you with Cricket by the lake,” my mother said. “You two were skipping stones off the lake and talking about a frog you all saw when I snuck up behind you and called your name.” My mother went on to tell me that just after she called for me, I turned to her as I had the previous day and Cricket, startled by my mother’s whistle, turned around as well and grabbed ahold of my left arm. I looked the photo over and tried as hard as I could to remember that day by the lake, but I could not. Noticing that I was trying my best to remember, my mother told me to keep the picture with me in my room so that I might someday remember who Cricket was. As I walked out of her room, my mother asked me “What exactly made you think of her?” I told her about the dream and although I never referred to Cricket by her name in it, something in my mind kept feeding it to me, as if I my subconscious were telling me I needed to remember her and her name. I took the photo back to my bedroom and set it on my night stand. Years later, I would eventually purchase a frame for the photo, keeping it as a memento not only as one of the first significant memories I’d ever recall, but also as an ode to my lost childhood, and my long lost friend.
I eventually regained more of my memory as time moved on. I remembered my school, my teachers, friends, and some of my extended family. A large majority of my childhood with the exception of Cricket however, had yet to be returned to me. I did not recall holidays like Easter or Christmas, nor did I recall other special occasions such as birthdays. Later in my life I would see pictures of those events as well, but regardless of visual stimuli, just as I’d experienced with the memory of Cricket, I simply could not make myself remember. To make matters worse, as I moved through life and eventually into adulthood, events that would occur even well after the accident seemed to be much more difficult to remember, as if the part of my brain responsible for capturing and storing memories were sleeping on the job.
Fast forward about a year and my mother and I are in Eureka, California, brought there by my stepfather who’d recently married my mother and offered her a fresh start in a new place. Once we were settled in, I was enrolled in school and a new part of my life began. I must have been about 14 when I first met her. I am only able to vaguely remember because later in life she would remind me of that fact which stimulated some recall, but not much, my post trauma memory still suffering from the effects of the accident. We were both in theater arts class together. She would also remind me that our teacher’s name was Phillips. Her last name was Saldana. At the time, I remember thinking it was peculiar because that surname was not at all common, especially in the area where I grew up in Texas where the Hispanic population was quite large. Her first name was Mary.
Of what little I can recall from middle school, she was small or she at least seemed that way to me. I remember the feelings I had when I was around her, although I do not remember if we were all that close. At one point, we started telling people we were cousins even though we were of no relation. Sadly I cannot make myself remember much more from my middle school years or of her from that time period.
Skipping ahead to high school, the picture doesn’t get much clearer until I am about 16 or 17 years old. I remember seeing her at school from time to time, but I never had a class with her. If and when I did see her, it was after school. I remember her living relatively close to the school just as I did, and every now and then she would come home with me and just hang out in my bedroom. I began to enjoy her company more and more.
As time slowly passed in high school, I do not remember exactly how, but I was informed that she had a bit of a crush on me. Being young and not exactly sure how to handle the situation, I kept her at arm’s length, and I do not remember ever really discussing that situation with her. As the days passed and her attitude toward me seeming to simmer, I assumed the crush was simply dismissed as just that and nothing more.
More time would pass and I would eventually begin skipping classes much more often. I never had much of a passion for high school study as I found most of the subjects exceptionally boring and easy. From my recollection, Mary didn’t care much for high school education either. We found ourselves hanging out fairly often since neither of us attended classes on a regular basis. After a short while, I stopped going all together.
Mary would come to my apartment often. Sometimes she would come during the day just to hang out, but after a spell, more during the night as well. We began to get closer as we spent extended periods of time together. Several visits into our pseudo-relationship, things began to change for me. I found myself wanting to be with her and dreading the coming of the time when she’d leave. Waiting for her next visit was beginning to make days seem like weeks. I started to wonder if she still had any of those old feelings for me.
One day she showed up and told me she was still a virgin and wanted to have sex. She said she knew I had had sex before and since she trusted me, she wanted me to be her first. I was, at first, very shocked by this and didn’t exactly know how to respond. She was very insistent on us having sex so, although my heart was not in it, I attempted to have sex with her. We hopped in my old, yet comfortable twin bed; parts of the out material I’d ripped and written on out of boredom, and began to try setting the mood. My halfhearted attempt didn’t work very well for us at all.
I felt somewhat uncomfortable with the situation as it stood because at that point, my feelings had begun to grow significantly for Mary. To me it didn’t feel right to have sex with her simply so she could lose her virginity. I found myself unable to help her with this particular “issue.” My body was willing and able, but my mind and my heart were not present in the slightest so after several attempts that day, Mary was still very much a virgin. She was good to me about it though. She never questioned why things weren’t working out and why such a request couldn’t be accomplished. After a few moments of uncertainty, we both got up and got dressed and went about our visit as if nothing had happened.
After she left that day, I began to seriously question myself. “Why was I not able to put aside my feelings for her and just have sex?” I said to myself. I had always found her amazingly beautiful in a girl next door kind of way. She had a contagious smile that could snap me out of just about any foul mood. Her almond shaped eyes were mesmerizing and her skin soft as silk. After hours of deep thought, I thought I’d figured out why I wasn’t able to have sex with her. I was falling in love.
My realization first caught me completely off guard. I tried to rationalize why I was feeling the way I was. I had recently broken up with a girl I had been with for a few months and at that age, a few months’ time feels like an eternity. Given those circumstances, I shrugged it off as my heart still being wounded by my old girlfriend and forced myself to bury my feelings for Mary.
More time passed and Mary’s visits were not as often, and when she did come by, it was most often during the evening. I didn’t mind her coming by later at night in the slightest. I was just so happy to see her when I could, so day or night never matter to me. After a little longer, she began to spend the nights at my apartment. Some nights she would sleep on the floor of my living room, usually with an extra blanket I would provide her along with a couch cushion that doubled for a pillow. Other times, when she was feeling particularly vulnerable, she asked if she could join me in my bed.
We would lie together in the darkness and use each other as a personal warmer, her body always close to mine. On occasion, we would face each other as we cuddled under my blanket and not say a word. As I recall, on at least one night we saw fit to kiss each other. I remember her lips being very soft and moist, and my body shivering as if I were freezing as feelings I’d not known before filled my heart. Shortly after, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. My pounding heart refused to let me sleep most of that night.
As more time passed, I began to feel her getting further and further away from me. She would still come by, but not nearly as often as before. On one night in particular, she came by very late, appearing rather tired and distraught, and looking for a place to sleep. My cousin, whom I shared a room with, had come home drunk and angry so I ended up sleeping in the living room on our old, blue couch. I setup a small sleeping area for Mary next to the sofa. We were lying there no more than 15 minutes when I turned toward her while she was adjusting herself and trying to get comfortable on the floor when I asked her if she wanted to sleep with me. She quickly said no and turned over so she could face away from me. Only later did I realize how terrible my request must have sounded, regardless of the fact that I was not inviting her into my bed for sex, but simply to provide comfort for her as it didn’t take much for me to pick up on the fact that she was dealing with serious grief and inner turmoil.
Her visits became much more sporadic over the following months and there were times when she would not come by for a week or two at a time. I’d become seriously concerned for her as her behavior was changing; her connection with me seemed distant and her attitude toward me colder. No longer was I a friend that she could come to for anything, regardless of time, but now I felt I was being seen as a hideout; a place she could come to as an escape from whatever kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into.
I’d known that she had problems at home as on several occasions she’d told me about how her mother was into drugs and beat her on several occasions, bruises often appearing on her arms, legs, and on her back and neck. I’d let my mother and stepfather in on that fact which is why I was never chastised about Mary being there in the morning when we all woke up. Still, as the months passed, the time we spent together consistently grew smaller. Eventually what I thought was the last night I’d ever see her, finally came.
I remember it being much later in the evening, around midnight or so when Mary came calling. I opened my apartment door to see that Mary had shaved all of her hair off of her head. At first, I didn’t know what to think of it. She seemed proud of having those small, miniscule spikes for hair so I, always being on her side, rubbed her newly shaven head. Although she was smiling, I knew something was wrong with her. She seemed out of it, and wasn’t her normal self, her eyes darting around, giving the appearance that she was on something. She came inside and stayed no more than 5 minutes. After a few moments of small talk, she said she had to go and when I asked where she was going, I didn’t get an answer. She was clearly hiding something from me.
As much as I wanted to pry and find out what was going on, I curbed my questions and saw her to the door. My throat became tight as I watched her walk out of my first floor apartment. I remember thinking something was very much wrong, but I continued to hold my tongue and never said a word to her as I watched her walk out. I cannot remember if she said anything else to me as she left. She walked out my door, turned around a corner of my apartment building and was gone. I would never see her again, or so I thought.
Fully expecting to eventually have her show up on my doorstep, I bided my time by reading books and writing bad poetry as I waited for her arrival. Days turned to weeks, weeks into months and still no Mary. I’d become terribly worried. Although her visits were not as frequent as the once were, she seemed to always find her way back to me. I thought back and remembered a time when she told me she felt safe with me at my place which is why she came by as often as she did. I was her safe haven from the problems surrounding her world.
Two months passed and she never returned. I began to make myself sick as I worried endlessly for her. Before I knew it, I was 18 and somehow managed to get my driver’s license on my first try. From time to time my mother would let me use her car for various reasons such as looking for work, running errands for her, or even just to go out with a few of my friends. On many of those occasions, without saying a word about it to anyone, I had quietly been looking for Mary.
Before I knew it I was sneaking the car out almost nightly and driving to places I thought Mary might be. I recalled an apartment complex where I’d met up with her once before, and I found myself driving by there every few nights trying like crazy to remember the apartment number where I’d seen her, but I never could. I found myself going by what I thought was her home, and sometimes I’d see a light on in what I thought was her bedroom; at times, even getting out to try and see who was inside. It was never her. I began to get desperate.
I started searching in places any average person would never want to have any association with. I had a feeling she was getting into drugs toward the end so I started poking around certain circles, asking if they knew her or knew where she was. No one ever knew or at least never bothered to tell me, regardless of what I offered them.
By that point my feelings for her had become very clear to me. I had in fact fallen in love with her. I found myself willing to do anything I could to find her. I spent many nights driving around, asking anyone I could if they had seen or heard of her. All my searches were fruitless. Before I knew it, those few months had quickly become a year. I continued my searches to no avail. My worst fears began to creep into my mind that perhaps her frazzled past had finally caught up to her. Did she cross the wrong person? Had she become indebted to a drug dealer and he found a way to get his money out of her?
For 2 years I tore myself up with that bag of emotions. The nightly searches and the unforgiving streets were beginning to take their toll on my health and my spirit. Even after moving from that old apartment, I found myself going back to that same neighborhood and parking in the apartment lot for hours at a time during the night, thinking Mary may just wander over to find me one more time. I felt my will break a hundred times a night as my desperate heart fell into sorrow. As much as it pained me to do it, I knew I had to let her go and make myself move on. I forced myself to believe that she, becoming a victim of her own treacherous lifestyle, was dead.
I was 19 years old and all my energy that I’d spent looking for her eventually left me homeless. My mother, who had finally had enough of me being locked in by depression, asked me to leave her and my stepfather’s house. She handed me $10 and asked me for my key, and told me she was sorry. I packed a small duffel bag with some random clothes, called a friend to come pick me up, and left. I hopped around from place to place for a while and on some nights when I had no place to stay, I ended up sleeping under an highway underpass close to my old neighborhood, using my duffle bag as a pillow.
I was lost in my mind and in my heart. My options were dwindling and I wasn’t sure what to do at that point in my life. Luck finally sent me to stay with my high school friend Roger. After staying there a few nights, his mother told me that she was aware of my precarious situation and invited me to stay there permanently if I wanted. With little money and in no position to refuse, I quickly accepted the offer.
A few weeks would pass and my depression remained. Roger and his mother showed me infinite patience as I dealt with my loss. In a desperate move to break myself out of my funk, I accepted an invitation to a Sunday mass at the local Cathedral. My friends Ronald and Gina met me there and tried their best to cheer me up. As I sat in a pew, not listening to the preacher, Gina introduced me to a tall, beautiful girl with soft features sitting directly in front of us. I found out later that day the girl had seen me there before on a previous visit and had an apparent interest in me.
That tall, beautiful girl was a choir singer named Jacquelyn. She was a couple of years younger than I was. Seventeen and still in high school, she fell in love with me rather quickly. I tried my best to reciprocate that love, but in the end I failed miserably. Only later did I realize that my tormented heart had betrayed me as I wasn’t able to give Jacquelyn the attention she deserved. She stuck by me as long as she could; however the stress of my emotional state and my unwillingness to better myself drove her from me. To her credit, Jacquelyn treated me very well. She would buy me dinner quite often and at one point saw fit to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a tennis racket for me so that I could have decent equipment for when I played which later would become every day.
The day Jacquelyn broke it off with me, I had an emotional breakdown. I sat in the dark and cried for what must have been hours. At many intervals, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. I had begun to fully invest myself into her only to have her then tell me she had been seeing another man behind my back. I would later find out that she was never seeing anyone else, but rather looking for a way out that didn’t place any blame on me. Only years later would I understand why she did such a thing. During the course of our relationship, I’d become too much for her to handle. She was still in high school, trying to finish out her senior year and keep her grades up, and I was a huge strain on her emotionally. She, knowing that I was essentially a wreck, thought it best not to point out my shortcomings and instead found a way to place the blame on herself.
It was August 1997 and my life was a catastrophe. I was more than ready to cash in my chips and end it all. I was a walking zombie and Roger and his mother were growing tired of carrying me. By a huge stroke of luck, I ended up going with a friend to a local pager and cellular phone store not too far from Roger’s place. Inside, I found an old high school friend named Hillary.
She was a tough and spirited girl who played sports and always put on a strong face. It turned out her uncle owned and ran that store with his brother in law. Hillary had been helping them during the summer with very general office labor such as filing and ringing up orders for customers, and knowing that she was going to be heading back to school soon, they were in need of a replacement. Knowing I was in dire need of a break, Hillary recommended me.
It was minimum wage, but it was a job and I was in no position to turn it down. The first few months were rocky as I was still having terrible issues with sleep, but over time things began to look up. The store was a short walk from Roger’s house and about 2 miles from the local community college where my church friend Gina was attending classes. She would come by to check on me whenever she could, often times dropping in during the lunch hour when she had time away from class. She was happy to see me doing better as I seemed to flourish with my new found employment after spending so much time at rock bottom. It is at that point that I began seeing a woman named Felicity.
I cannot offer many details on that part of my life because regrettably I do not remember her. In fact, at one point, I had completely forgotten about her and had to be told who she was. Even then I didn’t completely believe I knew her until one day I was looking through a very old box of photos and came across a picture of someone I didn’t know. The unknown woman in the photo would turn out to be Felicity. Still unable to recall the relationship, I abandoned trying to remember her, thinking maybe it’s best to let the past be the past in that case.
It is October of 1999 and I am working for a hotel called The Majestic. At that point in my life, I‘d decided to become much more open to women, although I was not looking for a relationship. While working at the hotel, I met and slept with several women. A couple I half-heartedly pursue a relationship with, trying my best to keep things casual. I did eventually develop an attachment with some of those women and began to open up a little more to the possibility of a real relationship. While at least a couple of those women were what I felt was a good match for me, the relationships never pan out and I end up either being left behind or breaking the relationships off on my own. Not wanting to have the sense of loneliness come back into my life, I continue to see other women.
In June of the year 2000 I receive the shock of my life. When I thought I had finally begun to accept that Mary was out of my life, somehow she finds me. Through a mutual friend, she’d found out that I was working at the Majestic and decided to come see me during one of my night shifts. Through half shock and half jubilant rapture, I took hold of her and felt that I would never let go. The woman who I thought I’d lost for good and felt was the love of my life, without warning, was back in it.
She explained to me that she ended up leaving town and settling in San Francisco which is about a 5 hour drive from Eureka. In August of that 2000, she would eventually come to visit me at my latest apartment, a place I shared with a friend named Robin whom I’d known a few years. Mary, apparently being cautious, brings two of her friends along for the trip. Within an hour of her arrival, we end up exiling them to the living room while she and I retreat to my bedroom.
October of 2000 arrives and I pack up and leave Robin and the apartment, giving her over 2 months’ notice. I move to San Francisco and only bring what I feel I really need. I leave behind my bed, desk, and various other furnishings as well as dishes and some clothing. Although I had given Robin plenty of time to secure a new roommate, she is bitter toward me for my leaving her and Eureka. The apartment I move into with Mary is one she’d already been renting. It was small, cramped, and wreaked of cigarette smoke. After managing to stay with the Majestic via transfer to San Francisco, I begin to make good money and we are quickly able to afford a much larger apartment.
In March of 2002 Mary and I wed in a small ceremony at the San Francisco county courthouse. My parents and a small number of my friends from Eureka attend, as well as my friend Ronald and his new wife Sheryl, who ironically is the woman I had recently broke up with about the time Mary and I began to get much closer while we were teens. I was never made aware of Sheryl and Ronald’s marriage. I later found out that Sheryl, no longer being upset over the failure of our relationship, insisted that I come to their wedding ceremony. Ronald lies to her and says he cannot get ahold of me so they wed without ever informing me. Sheryl got quite angry with Ronald for lying to her, but I tell them I am completely ok with it. Sheryl, pleased with my acceptance, congratulates me and my new bride. Mary, unaware of who Sheryl was to me, welcomes her as Ronald’s wife. As the day progresses, Sheryl brings up hers and Ronald’s wedding to Mary, also bringing up the existence of our previous relationship and talks about how pleased she is that she and I are still good friends after all that happened. Mary is not at all happy with the revelation, but keeps her feelings quiet. We attend our small reception and while I noticed something bothering Mary, when I ask, she says she is just tired from the long day.
It is May 18th, 2002 and Mary is holding a gun to my head. She forces me to take all of my clothes off and shower in front of her so I can “wash the smell of those other women off” of me. Mary, who at this point is hooked on Xanax, is also on depression medication that I was not aware she was taking. She has become paranoid and thinks that I am seeing women from my job behind her back. I swear to her that there is nothing going on. She insists she knows for a fact that I am seeing other women, but when asked, cannot provide proof. As I shower for her, she waves the pistol between me and her head, making additional comments to me and even threatening to kill herself as I scrub. She then forces me to turn the hot water on very high and my skin begins to redden and burn. She mentions Sheryl and the past relationship I had with her, and states that since I never mentioned the relationship, there must be more that I am hiding.
An hour passes and a physical struggle ensues, and I have managed to get the gun away from her. Ejecting the loaded clip from the 9mm pistol, I throw it on top of a high shelf and remove the loaded cartridge, tossing it in the toilet and flushing it. I drop the gun and grab my wireless phone as well as the cordless phone and run outside. I have my mother on one line and a 911 operator on the other. I run up a stairwell opposite our apartment and try to stay quiet so that Mary cannot hear me. I continue to whisper information to the operator when she surprises me and storms up the concrete steps with a baseball bat and a case containing several pieces of camera equipment I managed to accumulate for a photography business I was trying to get off the ground.
She slams the case onto the concrete and proceeds to smash it with the bat, each damaging blow striking with tremendous force. The case, after several hits from the bat, finally pops open and she grabs my newest camera by the strap and slams it to the ground. She then pulls out two camera lenses and flings them down the corridor separating our apartment from our neighbors. She then lifts the bat up above her head to strike me. I scream out “No!” at the top of my lungs and lift up my hand to try and stop the incoming blow, dropping one of the phones in the process. Seeing the terror in my eyes, she stops and grabs the phone. With her distracted, I scamper up the next set of stairs and run as fast as I can away from the apartment. I still have my wireless phone in my hand and the entire time the 911 operator is listening in horror at my cries for help.
I run toward a covered parking area and as I spend my last inklings of sanity, a police car arrives and pulls up in front of me as I slowly slump down to the pavement in a heap. I am bleeding badly from my arm and my back, both defensive wounds I received while trying to battle Mary for the gun. Seeing that the authorities have arrived, she retreats back inside the apartment and, retrieving the clip from on top of the shelf, reloads the gun and screams from the apartment window that she will kill herself. An office lifts me up, tossing my arm over and around his neck, so that I can be walked over to an awaiting ambulance for treatment. Thankfully the wounds are not as bad as first suspected and I am cleaned and bandaged up while they try to persuade Mary to come out. She finally does exit the apartment, but only after swallowing a bottle of pills. A second ambulance arrives and she is rushed to the hospital. My cousin that once lived with me and my mother when I was a child arrives and he and I quickly pack his truck full of my belongings. That day, I leave San Francisco.
It is November 2002 and I find myself quitting the Majestic. Somehow my wife has guilted me into returning to San Francisco. I have saved up several months of pay all while sending her money to live off of so I end up returning without a job, but still have a considerable amount of money with which to support myself. She tells me her time in jail and her probation officer have really made her change. Against my better judgment and because I feel a need to leave Eureka again, I believe her story and go back.
In October of 2006 I am laid off from a well-paying job that gave us enough money to move to a very nice part of San Francisco just off of the Bay Bridge on Beale Street. We have a three story town home with a garage and by this point, Mary has become spoiled by my money. When she finds out I have been laid off, instead of consoling me, she becomes angry.
I end up having an incredibly difficult time finding work as the country slides into recession. The few offers I get are for less money that I would make from my unemployment checks. Mary, unhappy that I can no longer keep her in the lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to, slides back into her old ways. On a whim, I apply to The Company, never expecting to get a response.
Within a year, I am absorbing abuse almost daily. I try to make money from selling items on eBay and actually begin to do quite well. However it is still considerably less than what I was making at my old job so Mary is not satisfied. Not wanting to strike her back, I sit there and take the physical punishment, and at times cover my face as she hits me either with her fists or whatever blunt item is near her. Several remote controls lose their lives over that time period.
I take a hard labor job that I know I cannot do. A car accident in September of 2000 damaged my lower back, preventing me from standing for extended periods of time and limited the amount that I can lift. I stay with this job for 10 weeks and almost every day I come home in tears and suck down massive amounts of pain killers to take the edge off. Although I have Vicodin, I keep myself from taking it, saving it for only the direst of situations as my doctors believe I am an addict. Regardless of their knowledge of my back problems, I notice them becoming increasingly resistant to my requests for pain medication so I stop asking.
It is August of 2009 and I am planning my suicide. I debate if I should leave a note or not and if I do, should I bitterly place the blame on Mary. My mind becomes fixated on this quest and I know I am falling into psychosis. I am sleep walking and finding myself pacing in the living room at 3-4am almost nightly, shaking my hands as if I were trying to remove guilt which has attached itself to me at the wrists. While it is not unusual for me to hear voices in my head because of my childhood accident, I notice others slowly beginning to creep in, offering solutions to my “problems” and trying to get me to do irrational things.
It is November 2009 and I go to my family doctor complaining of chest pains. I tell the doctor I am aware that this may very well be from stress and volunteer that I am under a great deal of it. The doctor, wanting to be diligent, gives me a nitroglycerin tablet to try and lessen the tightness in my chest. A minute after taking the tablet, I start to feel faint and I begin to sweat profusely. The room begins to spin and as I struggle to steady myself, I am instructed to lie back on the examination table so that I do not fall over and hurt myself. My doctor and a nurse carefully lay me back and I begin to feel myself slipping into unconsciousness. The doctor asks me how I feel and I tell her I am afraid as this experience is frightening, yet somehow familiar. She gives me oxygen and slips another nitro pill under my tongue. The doctor believes she has just induced a heart attack and calls an ambulance.
My chest is tight and my heart is pounding, and a strange murmur of a feeling overtakes me. I ask the doctor if I am going to die and she doesn’t answer me. Realizing this could be the end, I think to myself of how this could be a blessing in disguise, my mental illness rearing its ugly head. I silently begin wishing for death. I pray that I will pass out and never regain consciousness, and as the light from the room is fading in and out, the ambulance the doctor summoned for me arrives. The paramedics walk into the examination room and carefully load me onto another gurney and put an IV in my arm. They stick several nitro patches on my chest and monitor my vitals. My blood pressure is plummeting. Tears are running heavily from my eyes as I am rolled out through the waiting room area of the doctor’s office. I remember turning my head and looking at the few people who were waiting to see the doctor, some of them with terrified looks on their faces as they look on in disbelief. The medics stop for a moment and exchange a few details with the doctor before I am rolled out to the waiting ambulance. As my vision fails me, I see someone in the room look back at me and cover their chest with the hand, either out of mockery or simply at the sight of a man who looks like he could die at any moment. For some unknown reason, I reach out my hand to them and mouth the words “I want to die.” Grabbing my arm and placing it back onto the stretcher, the medic along with his partner roll me out of the office and load me into the back of the truck.
Still faint, I am struggling to catch my breath as the medics drive me to the university hospital located on Parnassus Avenue. My doctor calls my wife to let her know of the situation. Mary tells my physician she is on her way to the hospital. I would later curse the doctor for telling Mary about what was happening. The ride feels long and full of bumps and I am barely conscious. When we finally arrive, I open my eyes to see that Mary had already arrived. Her eyes are tearless and her expression, apathetic. I couldn’t help but think to myself that she too was hoping I would die.
She stays in the room with me out of necessity, sitting in an uncomfortable chair which is sitting up against the wall. There is a television in my private room that she almost immediately turns on before taking her seat. The doctor comes in and begins with the tests, ordering a chest x-ray and several blood draws. Pain begins to set in as my aching chest and stiff body and back throb, leaving my entire body rigid and stricken with agony. Breaking a personal rule of mine, I ask for pain medication. The nurse first administers intravenous Ibuprofen which does nothing. The doctor comes in and notices my obvious discomfort and orders a narcotic. Over estimating my weight, the nurse administers too much and burns my veins, but also relieves my pain to the point of almost passing out.
Hours pass and the doctor comes back and tells me he doesn’t believe I had a heart attack, but insists I see a specialist the following day. The nurse sets the appointment for me and hands me a card with the information for a local cardiologist. I am signed out and I stumble to Mary’s car still feeling some effects of the pain medication they gave me during my time in the ER. She doesn’t assist me. I ask her to take me to get my prescription of Vicodin filled. She reluctantly agrees.
It is December 1st 2009 and I am hearing more voices. Most of them do not tell me anything in particular as I perceive them as mumbles and distant conversations one might hear through the walls of an apartment. Within a week I am seeing people who aren’t really there. I also begin to see animals run past me that do not exist. I am convinced I’m on the brink of losing it. I call my health insurance and they insist I see a therapist right away. I pick a name out of the phone book and set the appointment for the next day.
My therapist is a kind, older woman, and her voice is soft and understanding. Her office is small and old looking, but clean and well kept. After hearing my tale, she openly expresses that she is very afraid for me. I tell her I am done trying to fight my illness on my own and if she feels I need meds, I will go back to my family doctor to get them. She calls my doctor and asks that I be given something immediately. The doctor calls in a prescription for me to my local pharmacy, the same one I went to for my pain medication. My therapist sets up an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist so that he may continuously monitor my medications.
I am given Prozac and Seroquel by my family doctor, and I take both as directed. Within three days I report to my therapist my mood has changed from desperation and despair to not caring about anything or anybody. I tell her I know it’s too soon for me to see a benefit from the drugs I’ve been prescribed. I make her aware of my memory problems and the accident from my childhood. She again expresses that she is afraid for me.
My 4th session with my therapist yields a simple and straight forward directive from her. “You have to leave her,” she says. By this point she is very aware of my history with Mary. She goes on to ask if I have any nearby family who can take me in should I decide to leave her and I tell her of my mother and stepfather in Eureka. I tell her I will consider her advice and let her know what I decide.
It is December 16th 2009 and I am lying on the living room floor listening to voices as they tell me to kill myself. They keep reminding me that I have more than enough Vicodin to easily do it. I insist that I would rather take my sleeping pills to do it. Then another voice tells me I should take both. After a few hours of debating with myself and the voices, I force my body vertical and sit in front of my computer monitor to write my suicide note. My body has become numb and my hands do not tremble in the slightest. People begin to sit beside me and critique what I am writing. I reach out to touch them and as my hand gets close, they vanish or break apart into millions of particles, and dissipate before my eyes. I eventually forget about the note as I am repeatedly distracted by the apparitions and fall over to the floor again.
I begin singing to myself, whispering broken lyrics to unknown songs and listening to the battered and brittle musical notes in my mind as tears fall from my eyes and across the bridge of my nose. I touch my face as the tears tickle the top of my right cheek and I realize that my skin is rough and oily. Wishing for a shower because I feel unclean, I manage to make it up the stairs to the bathroom and turn the knobs to the tub, releasing a surge of cold water. I sit in the tub and pull the show lever, and let the water fall on me for how long, I cannot remember. I crawl out from inside the tub and wrap myself in a robe, finally standing so that I am able to wrap it’s drawstring around my waist. My cats, which were lying on the bed, scatter as I fall onto it. One of them returns and lies near me, and tries to offer its soft fur as comfort. I put my hand to the cat’s face and lightly scratch it cheeks with my fingers and it begins to purr. The light and comforting hum assists me in falling asleep.
The next day I return to work and sit down at my desk, and almost instantly break down. I call my mother who to that point I had not spoken to in several months and isn’t aware of anything that has been happening to me. I tell her I am hearing voices and seeing things that do not exist. I tell her I have been to doctors and that I am afraid. I tell her I cannot deal with the abuse any longer and that I am contemplating suicide. She immediately insists I come home.
I take off my work badge and leave it on my desk. I rush back to my apartment and pack all that I can and within 3 hours, I am on the road back to Eureka. I ignore the voices which are still challenging me and insisting that I run my car off the road; all except one. It tells me to turn off my wireless phone and I do.
I arrive at my mother’s house exhausted and cold. I bring in two bags from my car and go into a guest bedroom she has prepared for me. I walk into the room and close the door behind me and do not come out for 2 days. I stay on the medication from my doctor and sleep off and on for almost a week. What few hours I spend awake I try my best to seem normal. It is the holidays and family and friends have been coming over on various days and at different times to visit my parents. I force myself to make an appearance, deciding it is best to not respond to something I see or a voice I hear unless I can be sure that it’s from a real person.
As I sit on my mother’s couch forcing a smile as my distant relatives exchange gifts and good wishes, I see all of the familiar faces I have been seeing for the last few months. I hear the same voices telling me to kill myself and in some cases, giving me instructions on how I should do it. My extended family, many of which I had not seen in several years, offer me hugs and welcome me back to Eureka. They are all of my stepfather’s relatives so unfortunately I do not feel any real connection to any of them. After about an hour of this, I retreat back to the guestroom, take my pills and go to sleep.
The next day I hear a light rapping at the door which wakes me. I climb out of bed and stand up to answer it. I open the door and see two bottles of water and a sandwich that was prepared by my mother sitting on the carpeted floor just outside my door. I am still hiding inside my room so often that she has begun to bring me food so that I do not become physically ill from neglecting my body and its nutritional needs. I take up the water and sandwich in my hands and take it back inside the room with me. Although I am not hungry, I force myself to eat and drink one of the bottles of water, saving the other for another time.
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