Chapter Twenty-Five
I didn’t intend to settle down in Moose Jaw, but, once I found myself there my first impressions left me guardedly optimistic. I noticed its residents were pleasant. I had a glimmer that perhaps I’d stumbled onto a good thing.
Moose Jaw was perfectly situated if you were running away from Regina, being close enough that I didn’t freeze getting there, yet far enough away that I felt safe. It was there I found asylum – warmth, food, an ear inclined to listening, a warm bed in which to lie.
Mere hours before I discovered the city that was to be my haven, I stood outside of Regina, the cow town in need of some down home decency. Eventually a man wearing his hair and beard long picked me up. He enhanced his look with rings and bracelets, faded jeans, a colourful T-shirt and running shoes that looked indestructible, unlike mine, which I expected, might fall apart at any time. We rode in a tranquil stillness for some time. He smoked thick joints and I looked out the window at the cold, cold snow.
Suddenly he started talking, telling me about some teenager he had given a ride to, who had been amazed that he knew who Pink Floyd was, let alone that he had some of their music.
“I’ve been a fan of Pink Floyd since the sixties,” he said, laughing. “I was living in London when they put out their first hit single, ‘Arnold Lane’, and let me tell you it was big.” I shrugged an ‘I wouldn’t know’ shrug. “I was going to call my son Syd after Syd Barrett. My wife talked me out of it. Lucky thing that; the fool went nuts and had to leave the band. I mean, who would want to name their son after some psycho?”
“You don’t see many Adolphs around, that’s for sure,” I said and then asked, “What did you call your son?”
“Paul, after Paul McCartney.”
“That’s nice,” I said, “real nice. He’s sure no psycho.” I choked on the word psycho. My head started to throb and the knot that was always in my stomach tightened. I hardly knew why anymore, but words like that made me feel real funny. I wondered if Paul McCartney would disapprove of someone like me.
“Yeah, old Sid went batty, right off the deep end. Of course I wouldn’t have my boy walking around with the name of a psycho.” Now he was repeating himself.
People had called me a schizophrenic and I figured that if he knew that, his hostility towards psychos in general might find a new focal point. He was a little bent himself as far as I could tell, but he couldn’t be too far gone – he still knew how to push the buttons of others. I was being overwhelmed by a need to get out of his vehicle.
“I always thought that Lennon had more balls, know what I mean? I should have named my son John.” I had no reply ready and could think of none that pertained to Lennon’s privates.
I propped my coat up against the door and window, to act as a cushion. I leaned on it and tried to relax and sleep a bit. Closing my eyes I cleared my sinuses and throat and started drifting…
“I guess Paul had himself a little scare though, eh?” I jumped. He pointed to a pile of t shirts. “Have a look.”
I looked and saw Paul McCartney with Japanese features in the middle of the shirt. It said, “Free Paul” at the top and “Free Light Society” at the bottom.
“What’s all this about,” I asked.
“Man, where have you been?” he asked, “McCartney was busted in Japan. Caught with half a pound at the airport. Man, I’m on the cutting edge with these shirts. I’m going to make a bundle.”
“What’s the Clear Light Society?” I asked.
“Rrrr,” he growled and slapped his forehead, “don’t you ever read the newspaper?”
“Sure,” I lied.
“Well then you’d know that they’re the main group behind legalisation in Japan.”
“Hmmm, I see.”
“I’ll bet you do. You’re probably a psycho like that ass Syd Barrett, foolish bastard, ruined my life.” Even I was left looking for the logic there.
“What’s the next town?” I asked.
“We’re just about in Moose Jaw,” he replied.
“As good a place as any,” I declared, “I’ll get out there.”
“Anyways, my wife filed for divorce and I didn’t contest it. She thought I had put a curse on our son’s life from the start. Here then, I’ll drive you into town a ways. I have to drop off some shirts anyways. Not too many though, I think they’re just discovering marijuana in Moose Jaw.” He snorted, having amused himself.
As I was getting out of his vehicle he asked, “You okay? You’re pale as a ghost.”
“I’m fine, just need some air.”
“See you, Syd.”
I shut his door and immediately turned and started walking. I heard him drive away and heard his reproach “psycho” over and over. A phantom, I thought, plainly a phantom.
I rode up in a slow moving elevator, sniffed the air and said, “Cleaning stuff,” to myself. Walking into the welfare office I fully expected to be rebuffed when I approached the receptionist and asked to see a social worker.
I was the same mess I’d been since what seemed the beginning of forever, but no one wrinkled up their noses or threw their hands in the air in disgust. I was politely told to have a seat and that someone would be with me soon. In short order I was led to a small, sparsely adorned office – one lonesome print hung on the wall and a plant that had been allowed to turn slightly brown sat in the corner.
“So, how can we help you today,” I was asked by a man who looked very much the ordinary, everyday, social worker. His tone of voice and demeanor were perfectly neutral. He tapped his pipe in an ashtray. He didn’t try to see through me, he didn’t glare. There was no gaze of steel. It seemed like it had been so long since I had beheld a look that didn’t judge. I felt some type of warmth and my eyes filled with water. I looked down for a moment and then back at him and after thinking twice I stated my business, without spilling my guts.
“I need a place to sleep for a while. I guess I need a place to stay.”
He nodded what appeared to be an affirmation, so I went a little farther.
“I also need food.”
“Nothing else?” he asked, and I said I could use a smoke.
He pulled a pack out of a drawer and tossing them on his desk he said, with a smile,“Someone left them here, knock yourself out. I have to go talk to the boss.”
It didn’t take long for him to return with the go ahead. I knew he had not been long because I was only on my second cigarette and I’d been pulling hard on them. I was delighted beyond words when I learned I was going to have my own room. Social Services would provide shelter at the Brunswick Hotel if I would agree to see a psychiatrist as soon as an appointment could be arranged. I agreed.
I was cut a small cheque and given two vouchers redeemable for food at Safeway. The proprietor of the Brunswick was paid directly by welfare, as a safeguard against fools like me squandering their rent money. If I had to actually enter the hospital, I was told, my room would be waiting for me.
I signed on the dotted line, but I didn’t quite get it. Someone out there somewhere, must be waiting to rain on my parade. This must be a mean-spirited joke.
After I had checked out the bed, looked in the mirror, turned the hotplate on and off a few times and found the bathroom down the hall, I understood that no one was joking. I finally had a warm place, a place of my own.
There were times over the next few weeks that I was afraid and found myself looking over my shoulder in a literal way, spooked by a feeling that someone was following me, creeping up to ruin everything. It was an overwhelming sensation that made me uneasy and oft times led me to look for a place to sit down. Each time it struck, I thought the feeling would never end. But it would end. As I grew used to having my own place I would shed some of the anxieties that had been victimizing me, in one way or another, since the days of my flight from city to city - since the times of looking for warmth and some type of fellowship with, or at least, understanding from my fellow man.
I was in the can, in the midst of reading a week old paper when I was summoned to the front desk. The hippy that had dropped me off in Moose Jaw had planted a seed. His derisive, ‘don’t you ever read a newspaper’ had stayed with me, had started me reading a paper any time I could find one. I would read a bit and then become absorbed in the patterns the words seemed to make on the page. Sometimes the other residents would send their thoughts onto the page I was reading. I played schizophrenic games with the words. “Hmmm, Indira Ghandi becomes Prime Minister of India again, hmmm, Indira, India, they sound the same, that makes sense.” I had no comprehension in the conventional sense. Though being called to the hotel’s command central was taking me from a useless word game that I couldn’t win. I was, nonetheless, irked at being take from my reading.
I was given my message – phone Social Services, nothing more or less. Ah, no, I thought, they’re going to kick me out, I’ve been all over the building again. Timorously, I dialed the number that was given to me by the blond haired and by no means unattractive desk clerk.
“Hello, it’s Carmen Playford.”
“Yes, just a minute please, I’ll put you through.”
I proceeded to have a short, mostly pleasant, conversation. I was expected to show up the next day at the hospital, with a change of clothing, a toothbrush, comb and so on.
“Can I take my books?” I asked. I had two books, the Bible and the Arabian Nights and I was assured that they were acceptable.
Just before we said goodbye I had a groundless suspicion that my worker was amused to see me in the situation I was in, that there was mirth in his voice as he said, “Get a good night’s rest, try to get eight hours sleep. Everything will be alright.”
I did everything I was supposed to. I slept for the recommended eight hours and then some. I packed my bag with everything I thought I’d need. Still I didn’t feel on the road to a turn for the better, possibly because I was beyond knowing I was ill.
The next day, as I neared the hospital I felt worse than I had for some time. I gathered that the doctors were supposed to fix something that was wrong with me. Yes, I knew that’s what they were supposed to do in hospitals, but I had my doubts as to what their real intentions were. I wasn’t sure what they were going to be up to, but I understood that I could be homeless again if I didn’t comply. Being asked to leave another place of refuge was something I would have had a hard time dealing with. I desperately needed to live in a warm, predictable environment. I dragged myself into the hospital screaming and kicking, in a non-literal way.
I was immediately put on the psychiatric ward. I don’t imagine there was much head-scratching going on when that decision was made. The good doctor asked me some questions that made no sense and reached for his pen. I was taking stelazine 10mg. three times daily before you could say vegetable.
I started sleeping a lot. I wasn’t well after one or two doses; you can’t just take a pill and have everything go away. It would take me a month or so of being saturated with antipsychotic medication for me to begin to think clearly, that is, clearly for me, which was akin to a faraway radio station, music, static, your favourite song interrupted, fiddle with the dial, some hissing…
Unexpectedly I began to develop a new problem, which was something I didn’t need. It all began after I had been there about a week.
While I was taking a bath after supper I looked down and thought, are you ever fat. This was laughable, though marginally. I became even more distressed when I started to see fat on everyone around me. The other patients on the ward, the staff members, the guy who cleaned the floors; they were all dopey and obese. I started boycotting food and in response, the people around me encouraged me to eat more. I eyed the meals we were given with distrust, thinking the food was poisoned.
“I’m tired of being fat,” I told the psychiatrist. He gazed at me sadly and gave me a prescription.
“You can come back,” he mildly pressed, “if you change your mind.” I put his script in my coat pocket and by the time I was pointed in the direction of my room, I’d forgotten about it.
Once home I set about throwing out everything resembling food. I kept the bread I had and the grape Kool-Aid along with sugar to sweeten it. I had read my Bible while in the hospital and I knew that they ate bread and drank wine at the Last Supper. It only made sense that I should try to emulate those who broke bread with Christ. I had to, in order to prove I was worthy of whatever good things God would see fit to send my way.
I figured that I would exist on bread and Kool-Aid. Only grape Kool-Aid for me, it was so much like wine. Living on bread and grape juice was something I did because of Jesus. I no longer believed that my brother was Jesus; he was just a very rich guy who always pretended to have nothing whenever I saw him. The real Jesus, I thought, was in the sky peeking on us all.
Time passed and I had grown very skinny. I was allowing myself coffee and cigarettes. I had decided the anorexia I lived with was no problem; it was just a very long fast. If temptation paid me a call I would remind myself that Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights.
One night I was sitting in a restaurant, piously sipping water. The Eagles song “New Kid in Town” was playing through a fine speaker system. I saw a man turn and point in my direction.
What now? Was he pointing me out as the new kid in town? I glared dull daggers at him. At another table a woman laughed hysterically and I heard someone say ‘Universe City’. I heard more laughter and someone said ‘town’. The guy who’d pointed seemed to be saying something secretive as he shook hands with the man he was with. I got up and left. I had to think.
As I walked downtown a man walked by with another and I thought he asked his companion, “When did you get back in town?”
There’s a new kid in town, town, back in town. What the hell’s with all this town crap? There’s a new kid in…town. So, town’s a place. Related to Universe City, I’d heard it in the coffeehouse, both places were mentioned and then the guy who’d pointed at me had shaken hands with his friend.
“That’s right,” said a mean voice out of thin air, one I failed to recognize, “and if you thought Universe City was bad, we’re worse.” There was a long silence, then, “Welcome to town.”
As I stood there, stupefied, I saw a long line forming for a movie. “There you go, cat,” the mean voice, spilling over with pure derision, said, “go have a look.” I didn’t dare disobey.
As I drew close, I saw myself in the glassed in case that housed the movie posters. I believed I was in a sex movie about an older man and a younger man. I was the young man.
Yes,” the voice spoke again, “we’ve used your image.”
I walked quickly down the street saying repeatedly, “I just want to get warm.”
Someone laughed. “Wonder what’s wrong with him,” another said.
Turning to a woman I’d never seen before, I said, “Don’t believe everything you hear or see.” The man she was with started to object but she held up her hand, telling him that she could handle it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’m in a movie I didn’t want to be in.”
“Really,” she said with eyebrows arched.
“It’s not make-believe,” I told her, “they took my image and used it.”
“Oh,” she replied and hugged her man a little closer. “See you, Mr. Movieman.” She faded into the crowd with her friend. town was worse already.