I think I was more traumatized from the incident than my father was. For the next couple weeks I was still making phone calls in the stairwell of my dorm. No one needed to hear a chunk of conversation that would make my dad sound crazy. They could think he was stupid all they wanted, I know I did, but schizophrenic episodes like that night carried a different kind of stigma.
A few days after the incident, once I was assured things had returned to normal, I found myself standing in the card isle of the pharmacy down the road from my building. My arms hung lazily to my sides. I normally gave Dad one of those cards that talked or sang when you opened them. This year, however, that idea seemed questionable. What if the bodiless voice brought back some kind of memory? What if it triggered another episode? But then I stepped back a little farther. What if not having anyone to talk to was what triggered the incident in the first place? He needed a card that provided some sort of relief from the silence. But that's ridiculous, he does nothing but watch TV anyway. There was never silence in the house. He needed something with which he could actually interact.
Wheels started turning. I decided to go with a card that didn't talk, not for any of the developed reasons I had been debating earlier, but simply to save money. Then I went downtown to an animal shelter and claimed a puppy. The people there insisted I take him home that night, but I protested. I just wanted to actually claim one so that I would go through with my idea.
I guess he wasn't a puppy. He was three years old, old enough to be trained to respond to the name Chester, so the privilege of coming up with something more creative was out of the question. Chester was a brown all over, his fur, his eyes, his nose. His previous owners had apparently abused him, but the only evidence of that was the missing tip of his right ear. Personality wise, he was as friendly as any other labrador.
In my dad's birthday card, I mentioned that I would be home the following weekend with his real gift. He got it precisely on his birthday (something I convinced him I had planned) and shared with me over the phone how excited he was to see me again. His birthday, however, had landed on a Tuesday so my visit was still a few days off.
Our first reunion in three months started the way one would have anticipated. I parked the car about halfway down the driveway and on my way to the front porch my dad threw open the screen door to greet me with a choking hug. I was the Prodigal Son that called home every day. And of course the first words out of his mouth were-
"Your school is only three hours away. You need to be coming home more than this."
I assured him I would be home again in a month for Thanksgiving and another month after that for Christmas.
"Well I guess I'm lucky my birthday isn't any later than it is. I would have gone crazy," he chuckled at himself. I was quick to change the subject.
"Was it a happy birthday, Dad?"
"Oh, no different than the last fifty-some birthdays. Heck, the good news in your little card was probably the highlight." Dad seemed to be growling his sentences more than usual, as if he had aged signifcantly since I started school.
"Well I've got one more highlight for ya, Dad." I hurried back to my car and opened the door to the back seats. Chester bolted out with the fury of a hurricane. He bolted around the front yard with some spastic sense of direction for a few seconds before charging back towards me and putting his front paws on my shoulders, panting like he'd been at this pace for days.
"Not me, Chester, go see your new Daddy." I pointed towards Dad and Chest immidatley ertook off in the direction of my finger. But when I looked at my father, anticipating some kind of joy over his newfound friend, I saw tears streaming down his face. This was the second tally on the times-I've-seen-my-dad-cry chart. I started to approach him.
"Dad," I started with one hand out, "are you okay?"
He looked down. No reply.
"Dad, I wanted you to have a new friend around the house since I'm not here. You were just saying I don't come home enough."
"I can't afford a dog, son."
"Oh, Dad, sure you can. I mean, he eats a lot, but any shots and stuff have been taken care of."
"I can barely afford my own food. How am I supposed to go back to feeding two?"
"Why wouldn't you be able to afford your own food?"
My dad looked back up. He was already done crying but his eyes were bloodshot enough to make mine want to water.
"I lost my job on my birthday."
"What?" I wasn't startled so much as curious. There had to be more to the story.
"They fired me on Tuesday."
I was wrong.
"Why?" I asked, chest puffing up like I was going to go down to his boss's house.
"All kinds of reasons. They said they've seen productivity decline in the past couple months. Then recently I started getting irritable with my coworkers. Then on Tuesday I snapped at my boss. You've gotta understand, son, no one said 'happy birthday.' Why wouldn't someone wish me a happy birthday?"
"Dad, we've talked every day this week. Why didn't you mention this?"
"What difference would it make? Besides, I didn't want to worry you. I just wanted you to focus on coming home. I asked Mary, I said 'Why isn't anyone wishing me a happy birthday? I've worked here for over a decade. You guys know it's my birthday.' And do you know what he said? He said the party in my head should be enough of a celebration."
"What are you talking about? Is Marty who you stayed with a couple weeks ago when you heard that angry voice?"
"No, but Mark told him. Mark told everyone. The angry voice told me I should fucking kill Mark, but luckily Steve convinced me not to."
A chill shot up my spine. The voice hadn't gone away. "Is Steve your boss or a friend?"
"Steve is my guardian angel. Steve is much more rational that the angry voice. When the angry voice tells me to kill someone, Steve calms me down. Steve only hurts people that really deserve it. Steve was the one who told me to yell at my boss. Don't tell him I said this, but I think the angry voice is the Devil trying to talk over Steve."
I took a step back. Chester had planted himself between myself and my dad, eyes darting between us two, still panting. "Dad, are there any other voices that people at work couldn't hear?"
"Oh, yes."
I stared for a second, waiting for him to explain. He didn't.
"Who, Dad?! Who else talks to you?" There was an edge to my voice I had not intended.
"God. God talks to me sometimes. But not as much as Steve or Satan. God says he has more important things to do than worry about me. He just tells me to stop whining about my job. There are people in Sudan starving of AIDs."
I wanted to correct what he had just said, but there seemed to be more pressing matters. I told Dad not to worry about feeding Chester yet, to just stay in the yard and play with him. Chester loved him. I insisted I was just going inside to use the bathroom, but I stayed by the dining room window. I tried to pace but even that proved difficult since I spent more time looking over the front porch than not. The lights were off to ensure he couldn't see me. I wanted to take him to a hospital or something, but I didn't know where to go for that sort of thing. No ER would take crazy people. Furthermore, I really didn't want to be in the car alone with the man. What if Steve told him to hurt me?
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called the police. I stated that it was not an emergency, and then explained my situation. This proved to be the right decision. A room was reserved in a psychiatric ward before the cop car arrived. My dad, perfectly content throwing a stick for Chester, seemed heartbroken when the police pulled in behind my car. From the dining room, I could see his face sink. He glanced back at the house, apparently just then noticing how long I had been in the bathroom.
I spent that night alone with Chester in my old bed. The next morning I was speaking to a nurse outside his room in the psychiatric ward. She was blonde with a voice just a little bit too high for my taste. The only nurse-like traits were her little costume and the clipboard she held. I felt bad for her. She probably had a masters degree, she works in an extremely draining and potentially dangerous environment, and yet I could barely take her seriously because of features beyond her control.
"Before we see your dad," she squeaked, "I want to show you a more extreme diagnosis of schizophrenia. Your dad-"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, did you just say my dad's diagnosed with schizophrenia?"
The woman was taken aback. Her eyes checked either side of me, as if looking for back-up. "I'm sorry. I thought you already knew that. Isn't that what you reported to the police yesterday evening?"
"I said it was something like schizophrenia. I don't know. I just assumed it was some subtype or something."
"Well, that's close to what I'm trying to tell you. Follow me, please," she continued, voice back to calm and irritating. She began walking down the windowless hall, away from my dad's room. "Your father's onset, although a bit sudden, was extremely, extremely late. And the earlier schizophrenia begins, the more severe it tends to be. The average age of onset for the disease is late teens, with apparent symptoms beginning mid-twenties. Your father may have had some of the less obvious symptoms for a considerable time now, but nevertheless, due to the late onset of the more dangerous symptoms, his case should remain somewhat mild."
"Mild?" I stopped walking. "The man lost his job because of this mess."
"Yes, but from what we've gathered from his story, that was largely due to the stigma surrounding the disease, not the actual symptoms. Also, he is learning here how to control some of his weaker moments, which will allow him to work again when he gets out."
"So he is getting out?" I asked hopefully.
"Very soon, I would suspect. The reason I asked you to follow me, however," she stopped suddenly and turned back around to me, "is to show you a more extreme version of the disease. I hope this puts your father's condition in perspective. A bit of a silver lining, if you will."
She looked at me sternly for another moment, as if verifying that I was ready. Then she opened the door and began devoting her full attention to the man inside. She set her clipboard on the table by the door immediately.
"Hi, Larry," she called sweetly.
Larry was sitting upright in his bed, only the lower half of his legs covered in sheets. He was dressed in khakis and a grey button down. He was twirling his finger through the black hairs of his goatee. His gaze moved slowly to the nurse, and never seemed to quite make it. He looked to be in his mid-forties, but somehow I felt he was actually much younger.
"Larry, this is my friend," the nurse began. "He wanted to come visit you with me. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, that's fine," Larry replied. I guess I was expecting something unusual about his voice. I expected him to bark or croak his words. But they came out very smooth and professional.
"How are you doing today?"
"It's hot in here," Larry said calmly.
"Is it?" the Nurse asked.
"When my sister and I were in Florida we barely got all the way to the ride."
"Really?" inquired the nurse. "What ride is that?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" He was still twirling around the hairs of his goatee.
"Yes please, if you don't mind telling me." Her hands were flat by her side.
"When I was four my mom told me about Santa Clause and I cried for days. You should never have to tell a boy, or any of the pretty girls, about it so young."
"I see..."
The nurse continued her conversation, failing to gather information on how he was feeling today and what he had been up to lately. She was extremely patient, and seemed not to blink. In this setting, where a indiscernible conversation seemed so delicate, her voice seemed much more appropriate. It went from ditzy to loving. Larry, on the other hand, never stopped spinning his finger around his patch of facial hair. I kept waiting for him to reference the voices in his head, or to have some emotional breakdown like I had seen in my dad. But it never came. An eternity later, the nurse and I exited. She grabbed her clipboard and Larry waved good-bye. She began walking back towards my dad's room.
"That didn't look anything like what my dad's been going through."
"Sure it did. His conversation didn't make any sense, right? You've noticed that in your father, I'm sure."
I thought to the night before, with the people starving from AIDs. There had been a few slip-ups like that in recent phone calls, as well, now that I stopped to think about it. Nothing that, at the time, couldn't be explained away by blaming the poor service in my stairwell.
"But he didn't mention voices or anything like that. That's what's been stressing my dad out."
"However, in the past week, your dad has adapted well to his hallucinations, no? The first day he spoke to you he was highly distressed, but yesterday he listed off multiple personalities as if they were long time friends."
"Yeah, I suppose."
"Larry is at the point where they hardly seem to be voices at all. They are just a normal part of his brian function. He's used to them. He was probably hearing them while I was in dialogue with him."
"So what does this mean for my dad?"
"This means he is going to be undergoing intense therapy for the next few days. He is already on new medications. It is imperative that he takes these every day. The most common reason for relapse with schizophrenia is not taking medication. And he mentioned a dog. Do you have a dog?"
I sighed. "Yes..."
"If you can't keep him, you'll need to find someone to housesit and look after him for a couple weeks until your dad returns home." I racked my brain for people that lived nearby who could look after my bad, impulsive decision.
"We're about to go in here together. Don't worry. He's not mad about you sending him in here. We've explained to him how you didn't have a choice and you did it out of love. As far as what things look like for you specifically, you're going to want to come home often. I'd say every weekend to start out with. He will need something steady in his life besides a dog."
As I had told my dad the night before, I would be home in a month for Thanksgiving and another month after that for Christmas.
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