Chapter 24: Dolly and the Sock Monkeys

"I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown which forces me to blow it at the most important moments."
Jim Morrison

                  

 MONDAY. 9/13/10

        I'm going home, but I'll be coming back real soon.

        "Whatever."

        "Whatever?"
        "Yup. Whatever. Doesn't matter."
        "One's not better than the other?"
        "Nope."

        "Morning? Afternoon?"
        "Whenever."
        "Doesn't matter?"
        "Nope."
       
        It's gonna be a rough winter.       
        It's gonna be here before I know it.
        It's starting to sink in.
           

        I'm sunk deep in my chair by the time Dean stops typing and starts talking.
        "So on Wednesday morning, you won't be coming here."
        "I'm confused."
        Yup.
        "If you walk out of this building,..."
        If?
        "...and you look to the right, it's the last building. Call them when you get home today or else tomorrow. Tell them you're not working and you have no insurance, and they'll tell you what kind of paperwork you'll need to bring with you to get your prescriptions covered. You'll be given enough today to cover you until Wednesday. They close from noon to one, so I'd try to get there early if you're not doing anything."
     
        I've got nothing to do but pack.
        I've got nowhere else to go.
        And even if I did, I've got no way of getting there.
       
        "Shit. I just remembered, I've got no way of getting there. Can I do Thursday?"

        "Thursday?"

        "Yeah. Sorry."
        Backspace. Delete. 
        "You have a way of getting there Thursday morning?"
        "No, but that'll give me an extra day to find one. I got a DUI a few weeks ago, so I'll need to get a ride from someone. The afternoon would probably be better too."
        "You've had a rough couple weeks."
        "Who, me? No way, it's been like the best summer ever, let me tell ya'."

        "What about your friend?"

        Dean doesn't realize, I have a lot of friends.
        "Which one?"

        "Jeff. The one you just called on my phone to come get you."
        "I think it's safe to say his summer's been a lot better than mine."
        Dean looks at me as if he can actually see the meds making me dumber by the second.
        "Do you think Jeff would give you a ride?"

        "Oh. I'm not even gonna ask. He's my best friend, I'd like to keep it that way."
        "How's that?"
        "Let's see. He took $900 out of his daughter's college fund to bail me out of jail. Hopefully I'll be able to pay him back before she graduates."
        "How old's his daughter?"
        "Three."
        "I'm sure you'll..."
        "Besides that, he's driven me home from jail...twice. I yelled "fuck you" at him while I was being put in the back of the cop car on Wednesday, and now he's gonna be picking me up and driving me home from a mental health facility. And this is all in the last six months. So, I wouldn't want him to start questioning what he's getting out of all this."
              
        "You can take the bus."
        Is this guy fucking kidding me?
        "Take the bus?"
        "You get off the bus at Military and Linton and it's a 5 minute walk."
        Off  the bus?
        I'm not getting on  the bus, not even if it's a no minute walk.
        "I guess..I can take the bus."

        I can't take the fucking bus.
        "I know the public transportation in South Florida's not like it is up North."

        How could public transportation not suck everywhere?

        "Hey, beggars can't be choosers, right? Besides, all of this has been truly humbling. Trust me."

        I'd rather walk than take the fucking bus. 

       

              

        Dean reschedules me for Thursday while I sink lower in my chair.
        With an emphasis on "Thursday", Dean says, "Okay, so on Thursday,"they'll give you a month of your meds so you'll at least be covered until you see someone at the place in Montgomery County."

        That's cute. It's okay, Dean. I understand. I too go out of my way as to not offend anyone, so I'd also refer to The Montgomery Mental Health and Retardation Center as "the place" to avoid laughing in the legally retarded face of the mental midget being advised to go there.

        Unfortunately, it isn't nearly as lol funny when I'm the legal re-re.

        
        For the first time since the pharmacist said,"Your Percocet script can be filled in 4 days", I'm actually looking beyond the next 36 hours of my life. And I don't like it. Even if I can Jedi mindtrick the people at "the place" in Montgomery County into thinking I don't need an antipsychotic, I'm gonna have to hustle even harder to convince them to either redline the milligrams of my selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or else stack it with whatever med has the lowest standards when selecting which suicidal ideations to inhibit.
         
        Dean has already gone above and beyond for me, and I know it's not his job, and I'm not sure exactly what his job is, but I'm hoping maybe the contents of the brown grocery bag on his desk include a life preserver. Otherwise, he might want to go ahead and delete my Thursday appointment  because I won't be coming back....from the dead.

        Although I'm sure most people would consider it my best option, I really don't feel like killing myself, even if for no other reason than not wanting to bum my parents out.
        And although this fiasco had already deemed me unredeemable, or  irredeemable, or whatever, maybe if I can keep my big mouth shut and never tell anyone about this, I might not be considered irrebangable, or unbangable, or whatever. Now that I was no longer feeling the numbness brought on by years of painkiller abuse, at least, not physically, the hope of finding a good fuck seemed worth fighting the good fight.
        I had to speak up.

        Instead, I squeaked.

        "Dean?"
          
        I had not been witness to such a laughable display of mousiness since I found my ex-girlfriend's prom picture in her box of shit she forgot when she scurried out of my apartment and life because I never asked her to marry me....and because I loved Roxy more than her.         
       
        Dean raised his head to see what the fuck.
        "I can't be around retarded people."
        His look indicates maybe that's where I belong.
        "What? James, you're..."
        "I'm just easily disturbed. Or maybe I'm too compassionate. I don't know."
        I'm just disturbed.
        Dean says, "I don't think you're..."
        "It's just that certain things really affect me. I see a retarded person and it ruins my day, and I don't wanna be going home depressed all the time."

        When you stop taking pain killers after 6 years, you remember what you forgot.

        "When I was like 3 or 4, I went to play in my Uncle Dixie's basement, and the only person down there was his sister, Dolly. She was a mongoloid and she had one of those little sock monkeys. I don't remember what she said, but she sounded like a little kid even though she was like 30. Scared the shit out of me so I ran upstairs and told my mom there was a girl in the basement with a monkey, and she said "That's just Dolly. You don't have to be scared of Dolly." But I was. I never went back down there until after she died. But her monkey was still there, sitting in her lazyboy. At first it creeped me out. And then one day, I picked it up and I just started crying, thinking about how I ran away that day. She was probably asking me to play or something. That really bothered me. I guess it still does, but then again, years later I heard she tried to throw my grandmother down the stairs once, so maybe I made the right decision. Either way, that's the first time I ever told anyone about that."

        Thanks for sharing. Keep it to yourself.

        Dean says, "Mongoloid is considered an offensive term nowadays."

        Ah, yes. The euphemism treadmill.
        I can't stop going nowhere.

        "See, that's what I mean. I thought "retarded" was derogatory until I just saw it in the name of the place I'll be going to. Isn't it more about how the word is used more than the word itself? I mean, who decides what's offensive?"
        "The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities."
        Whatever.
        My friend had an intellectual disability Sophomore Year. Poor guy, he couldn't comprehend that his copy of Cliffs Notes on The Old Man and The Sea was just as many pages as my copy of the actual book.
        I had my own developmental disability in 8th grade. Poor me, I couldn't comprehend why one of my nipples was bigger than the other.
    
        PC bullshit.
        So what if I'm not using the right words.
        Everyone's just way too sensitive.

        "I'm just way too sensitive. I saw this kid at church once, and he was...retarded?"
        I look for Dean's approval of my use of the "R" word. He slightly shrugs his shoulders to indicate that "sure, whatever, I give up".
        "He had Downs Syndrome or whatever, and when it was time to do the whole 'Peace be with you and also with you' routine, instead of shaking my hand, he kissed the back of it. That just broke my heart."

            
        I start telling Dean about the guy with the lobster claws.
        It went without saying this was not at a seafood buffet.
        "When I saw this guy, I got nauseous."
        Dean doesn't say anything, but he looks at me as if I said something wrong.
        "It turned my stomach to think about how cruel kids can be and I tried not to think about the kind of names he might have been called or the things people said to him growing up. And I tried to tell myself that this guy was probably or hopefully so severely retarded that he wouldn't have been able to comprehend being teased, but then I looked at his mom and all I could think was that even if he didn't understand, she sure did and I just pictured her sitting at her kitchen table breaking down into tears before she ever has a sip of her coffee. If I had a kid that was mentally or physically handicapped and someone bullied them or teased them, I'd probably fucking kill them. I think there are some thing that are too much to take."

         I figured it would have been too much for Dean to take if I told him how after seeing this guy, I couldn't jerk off for a week, maybe less, because I couldn't shake the image of this guy masturbating because there was no way the poor guy ever got laid. It was such a disturbing thought, I decided it was best to keep that one to myself. 

       
        "It would be too depressing to be around people like that. It makes me feel like shit about all the things I take for granted. Plus, I'd go home thinking I don't have any problems. And obviously, I do. But in comparison..."
        "James, you're not going to be in group therapy with people with mental disabilities. Mental disabilities and mental illness are not the same thing."
        "So I'm just mentally ill. I feel much better now."
        "You're being too hard on yourself. There's nothing in your file about mental illness..."
        Because everyone suffers hallucinations, delusions, and acute depression.
        "...any mental health issues you had most likely stemmed from drug use."
        "That's what I've been telling everybody."
        That's probably not something I should be telling everybody.
        "James, you don't necessarily have to attend group therapy. Maybe you can do one-on-one."
        "Yeah, I think that would be better for me."
        Ya think?

        Dean's suggestion could have something to do with me turning 15 minutes of paperwork with an administrator into an hour long therapy session, negotiating a drug deal with a money launderer.
        Maybe it was clear that if I were to join a group,  I'd have to be lead singer/songwriter and it would not take too many studio sessions before I became a dually diagnosed diva demanding we call ourselves "Jimmy Mac & The...Whoevers".
        If they didn't like it, I'd option them off The Jimmy Mac Band.
        And then, I'd tell them that if they don't wanna be part of The Jimi Mac Experience, well then, I got nothing for ya.

        Then I'd remind them of great groups with cool names like Kool and The Gang, The Dave Matthews Band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Darius Rucker and the Blowfish, Sioxsie and Banshees, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

        Then they'd ask me to name one other member of one of those bands.
        Then I'd go solo, get my own tour bus.
        Fuck a tour bus.

       All delusions of ever being a rockstar or a respected writer aside, Dean's right. All of my problems, well, most of my problems, are the result of my own bad decisions. Any group lucky enough to have me might resent my monopolization of our sessions with my problems, problems paling in comparison to their own.
        And I don't wanna hear about anyone else's problems.

        I'm too compassionate. Too sympathetic. Too easily disturbed.

           

        Dean slides the brown grocery bag across the desk. It has my name written on it and my personal belongings. They'll be at the front for you when you leave, just make sure everything's in there that you came in with."
        I reach in and pull out a ziplock freezer bag and examine it's contents.
        One black wallet.
        One phone.
        Two phone.
        Red phone.
        Blue phone.
        One is red. And one is blue.
        One is old. And one is new.
        
        Yup. That's everything.
        Dean's finishing up on my file, so I check my wallet to make sure nobody has heisted my life savings.
        Five dollars.
        Ten dollars.
        Twenty dollars.
        Thirty dollars.

        Yup. That's everything

        I put it back in the ziplock.
        I try to ignore the remaining contents. I can't.
        I pick up the red phone, flip it open and power it up.
        Missed calls and texts.
        With my other hand, I pick up the blue phone, flip it open. Even though I knew it had not received any calls or texts, I still had to check. I could still hear those calls. I could still see those texts.
        Can you hear me now?
        Uh, no. No service.
        Can you see me now?
        Uh, no. No power.
        And that's what happens when a phone has not been turned on or charged in two years.
        Or when you haven't really slept in 6 months.
          
        I'm mesmerized, a phone in each hand.
        "Two phones?" asks Dean.
        I put them back in the ziplock and back in the brown bag.
        "Yeah, only one of 'em works though."

        Dean reminded me that my brown bagged belongings would be waiting up front for me. Also waiting would be enough meds to hold me over until my Thursday afternoon appointment, then they'd send me on my way with a month's supply that would cover me at least until I get all sussed out with The Montgomery County Mental Health and Wetardation Center.
        
        "Dean asked, "So, you gonna be ready for the winter?"
        "Not really."
        "You leave next Monday?"

        "No, my dad's flying in next Monday. We're gonna drive back after court on either Wednesday or Thursday. Whichever day the 22nd is."

        Dean looks down at his desk calendar.
        "The 22nd is.... Thursday, first day of Fall."
        I snap my fingers.
        "Damn. I was hoping this summer would never end. I gotta say, the change of seasons will definitely be a change." DURRRRRR! "The seasons never change here. You can go to the beach on Christmas." I don't even know where I was last Christmas.

     
        Now that my personal crisis has been stabilized, it's back to the crisis stabilization unit. Dean walks my monkey ass back to my cage, shakes my paw, wishes me luck.
        "Thanks, Dean. I really appreciate it. Everyone here has been really awesome. Seriously."
        T opens the door to the unit.
        Dean says to T, "James is all set, he's just gonna hang out until his friend gets here."
        Dean calls my name before the door closes behind me.
        I step halfway out into the hall.
        "Yeah?"
        "When you get your things on the way out, ask whoever is up front for a bus schedule."
        "Oh, okay. I definitely will. Thanks again."

        Fuck the fucking bus.