"his brain has been been mismanaged/with great skill/all he believes are his eyes /and his eyes, they just tell him lies"

"license to kill", b. dylan

(depression: n. The act of depressing. The condition of being depressed. An area that is sunk below its surroundings; a hollow. The condition of feeling sad or despondent ...)

   Riz, my 400 plus pound pal, is making good psychological progress now that he found a doctor to tell him what I (and he) already knew: his old psychiatrist had kept him on “toxic” levels of lithium and clozaril (pure poison). To keep him from going psychotic.  For 6 years  .  Watch out for those anti-psychotics, they will make a mess out of your mind, and your body will get  much bigger.

  His physical progress is hampered by his bad knee, which some brilliant orthopedist recently told him is due to his weight & that he needs gastro-bypass to save his life. Plus: "Here, kiddo, is a shot of cortisone to help your 'bone on bone ' problem." Old school doctor, everything comes down to morality, which is true enough, but morality is corrupted easily in this pornographic society.

    What encourages me tremendously is that he is coming  back to life, mentally,  as he is being "detoxified".  It is a wonder to behold.

   For one thing, he can keep up with my whimsy, even when it reaches manic heights, which is remarkable in another male.

  He is capable of mighty wise whimsy himself, when he is not “OcD-ing “ (obsessive compulsive disorder-ing) about tiny details of his “safe” tableau of a daily life he tries to keep constant. To his continuous consternation, the world will simply not stay put, and he has to act.

  “I realize my theory lacks details, Jim. It needs to be…meta? Metamorphosed. So people can understand better.” We were throwing hypotheses about life, love and lunacy back & forth across the room like a football. Our favorite pasttime.

  He meant “metaphorized”, one of my made-up words, but this blurt was even better. Riz makes my mind keener sometimes. When he is calm and confident…

  This young man, chronologically 34, was arrested in development in his early twenties, just like me.  Me, maybe even further back, for I remember what it was like to be 11, in sixth grade, and I am remarkably like that kid.  I was trading cynicicisms with my damn math teach, Mr. Indomenico, Mr. I, Mr Eye, who actually called me “his idol”. Goodness, what the hell did he mean by that? He was a great pal. Last fella with a goatee that I trusted.  Italian, was he?  Huh. Maybe I should email the old boy.  He’s gotta be in his 70’s now…

  Riz is a big damn Eye-talian. We joke that he is the Godfather, me his consiguliere (like Robert Duvall in “Godfather”, Riz’s touchstone, due to  his mom playing it over & over. Or: allowing him to play it...)

   I counter by  telling  him I am his Fuhrer, and he, as an Italiano, my favorite nibbly prey in the Middle Ages when my German ancestors had it together, while not being together. The unification of Germany in 1871 was a very troublesome event, to put it mildly.

………………………………………………………………………………….

  What does it mean that when I speak German I feel oddly…together?

  Or that when Riz reaches for his Italian identity, he seems happy?

.................................

   Well, that is certainly unimportant in today’s egalitarian multicultural mishmash.

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 I said to Riz:

   “It’s ok, your theory, but what about the religious overtone to it? A lot of people won’t like that,” I offered, sucking in smoke from my home-rolls. Nicotine helps me think when I pull in short puffs. Puff , puff...

  “ What, the Jesus stuff? Should I leave it out?” he inquired, supine & shirtless on his couch, relaxing like a Roman emperor.He likes grapes, this guy.  He would feel it his sacred right to be fed grapes by a nice Italian gal. Not really. Well, maybe.

  What were we talking about? Damn, my scattered head..

  Oh yes, Jesus healing, etc. Riz was raised Catholic, and this is reflected in his philosophy.  It often comes back to Jesus, and God, and the Bible, for him.

  Red meat for a closet theologian like me..

  “NO! Keep it in, but know what you mean when you say it! “ I was pretending to be "exasperbated", as he often describes himself. Riz is not only a mirror of my own mind, but a fine microcosm of the American zeitgeist, for me.  Often I walk away from his suffering  body a lot wiser than when I entered his presence…

  "Well, he did say that stuff, right? About the 'meek inheriting the earth'?" he inquired. 

  “Of course He said that stuff, man! Haven’t you read your Bible lately?” I teased. Riz often got the Bible bug.  He has many gigabytes of Bible study material on his computer.

  “Ah,shut the f. up, professor,”he laughed,  his attention wandering to his fancy phone. He was now  texting.  His technology lay scattered in glorious shining expectancy around his somewhat messy couch  area: X box, cell phone, Ipad (pod?), Bluetooth, etc…he ran the world, or at least his world, from this couch…

   “'Meek' meant something different then, man.  Like , uh,” I inhaled a tremendous short drag and  continued; '’like 'prostitute’ , for one thing. Or even 'Father', or 'Spirit', especially when He said it, see? “  

  “Yeah, I think. That trinity. I never got what that meant. Three gods in one? Isn't that polymorphism?”

  “I suspect it is polymorphism, pal. How it ended up,anyway.  But not when He said it, somehow. Put that in your blender and drink it down!” Riz likes protein shakes containing fruit.

  “But. Well, ok, but..”

  (Phone rings. He is gone for awhile . Later, his mismanaged brain cannot remember what point we were trying to close in on with our patter. Neither can I.)

  Mentally ill people like us have short term memory problems.