I tell the girl with the ponytail there must be some mistake, knowing as I spoke there was none. I tried blame. Why was she released? The judge's order said she was to be released to me for transport to a halfway house.
None of it mattered. This was just so Rose. I was arguing for the same reason people litter their speech with umm.... I was killing time, waiting for my brain to kick in, tell me what to do next.
I stepped outside into the unseasonably warm sunshine in downtown Waukegan, Illinois. It's a depressing sight, even with its glimpse of glorious Lake Michigan through the concrete and brick. I spy across the street a twentysomething girl with her clothes in a clear plastic bag, another released inmate, barking into a phone, no doubt trying to get a ride home.
The county government building dominates downtown. Several square blocks house the jail, the courthouse and the dozens of departments that make up county government. Across the street to the east are the lawyers' offices, millions of them. The lawyers walk in groups in their suits and ties. Clerks rush to and fro from the offices to the courthouse and back again, all of them carrying stacks of thick files full of the documentation of justice. Rose is in one of them.
A block north is the magnificent Genessee Theater, refurbished before the crash. My wife and I go there now and again for concerts, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, George Carlin a few years ago.
But in the bright weeekday light it seems there are the lawyers and their clients and the clerks and me, befuddled and beyond pissed. Stuff like this has been happening too long for me to keep getting pissed. I try to collect myself with a familiar prayer:
God, grant me the serenity....
I notice a hot-dog joint across the street and think, of course. She's hungry. May have had a couple of bucks in her purse and is sitting enjoying a Coke wondering why her idiot father hasn't picker her up.
I stroll across the street and step inside, wait a few minutes in case she's in the john. Nope. I head back to my car and drive up and down the streets, knowing this is futile, but not having a better plan. I hit Martin Luther King Drive. Head south into North Chicago and I'll drive past the guys outside a liquor store selling crack, weed, whatever. I remember reading a while back that the operation was busted up. I decide not to find out and turn north back into Waukegan.
Then I think much of what I in the past assumed was Rose's insanity usually turned out not to be that at all but a clever plan, relentlessly pursued, to do whatever it is she felt like doing. I wonder if it's time to go home. I assume she borrowed a phone, called the boyfriend, he called someone with a car, and she'll make it to the halfway house on her own or not.
I call the boyfriend, I call my wife, I consider calling the lawyer--just so I can say I did something, should the worst happen--when the phone rings. It's her, 45 minutes after I arrived at the jail.
"Hey! Where are you?"
She says she waited a while. She felt freaked out sitting in the visitors area of the jail. She had a bus pass and visited a girl she met in jail who lived on the other side of town. I assumed she'd be high. I feel relief at this. If she's crack-high and crazy, she's not getting in the car. I'm just gonna leave. She doesn't seem to be high, so we head home.
Despite the adventure, we've got a couple of hours to kill. I take her home 30 minutes away and we wait for 5:20 p.m. She has an appointment with her shrink. He won't write more scrips unless he sees her.
I don't do confrontation with her anymore. I chose to wait around. I know this stuff happens when I try to help. My choice. We get home uneventfully. She showers and is ready to go almost on time. Good enough. I wait while she sees the shrink, then he asks me to come in.
She's upset he won't start Xanax again, says he promised if she went through rehab and showed she could use it responsibly, he would. I wasn't there. I don't know. He doesn't budge. I don't attempt to intervene one way or another. We drop the other scripts off, get a Starbucks down the street. Soon we are on our way, with a short pit stop at home. She forgot her state I.D. when she changed purses. It's now getting on 6:30 p.m. The halfway house is another hour away.
Mom comes home and they chat. Rose has been rather pleasant all day. There was a mild outburst--mild by her standards--in the doctor's office. But she actually thanked me a few times. I don't press her to leave. Eventually she says let's go and we do.
*******
There was a harrowing story in Chicago a few years ago. It's in the back of the mind of every parent of a bipolar child in the country. Check into the chat rooms, the on-line support groups in which parents share their hopes that the new medications will change things. I don't participate in these groups. I don't have the heart to tell 'em the truth.
Read long enough and soon you will see a reference to Christina Eilman. She called her parents, Rick and Kathy Paine, from a car rental place near Midway Airport on Chicago's South Side. They didn't know she was in Chicago.
The plan was, she gets on a plane and they'll figure out what to do when they pick her up. The Paines live in Sacremento, California. Christina got arrested at Midway Airport, apparently following a meltdown. They wouldn't let her board. The Paines got a call from the Chicago Police Department. Christina was in custody. The Paines tried to explain her daughter's condition. They asked the cops to get her on a plane if they could. They asked them to transfer her to a hospital, a psychiatric ward. They asked them to just hang on to her until one of them could get there.
Christina was released without explanation into one of the high-crime areas in Chicago. She was raped and ran through or was thrown through a seventh-story window of a high rise. She survived, sort of. Her heart still beats. Her parents hope that someday she'll be able to go to the bathroom and feed herself.
(The best reporting I have seen on this was in the Chicago Tribune. This wrap includes the gist of the story:)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-0608270351aug27,0,2724524.story
*******
I wonder what I think I'm doing. I know this won't work, but I'm not about to turn around and drive two hours back to the jail. The sober house is in a rough neighborhood west of Chicago. I agree to pay rent, a week at a time, but she'll have to count on food stamps for food. She'll have to find a job. I give her money for a bus pass. I leave. The next day I will go to the last halfway house to get her clothes and bring them here.
Meantime my wife texts and thanks me for doing this. She promises to screw me when I get home, but I opt for a late AA meeting instead. I don't remember what we talked about that night, but I know I felt safe when I left. And I got laid in the morning, before heading off to an Al-Anon meeting. I've become Stuart Smalley, a rumpled little man in a fuzzy sweater spouting bumber-sticker wisdom into a mirror.
Next day I make a big breakfast and hit the gym. I stay until late afternoon because the first halfway house isn't open till then. Everybody's out working or looking for jobs. I get Rose's clothes and bring them to the new sober house. They have a manager on duty. She lets me leave the luggage in her office. Rose isn't there. She knew I was coming, but had other things to do. I have a quick chat with the manager. I leave my number. I ask, please keep this number. When it happens, call me. She agrees. I split and head into rush-hour traffic.
My cell shimmies in my pocket. Rose is required to be at a meeting at the house four nights a week. Is tonight one of those nights? I hear the boyfriend in the background. I tell her I don't know what the deal is on her meetings. Then I turn the phone off and crank up a CD called Dick's Picks Volume III. It's a 1977 live recording of the Grateful Dead. Wonderful stuff. I stop at a tollway Oasis and get a double espresso. I've had only two cigarettes today and decide this is a good time for a third. I wonder if my wife is still feeling generous. Maybe I'll pick up some barbequed ribs on the way home.
She likes ribs.
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Comments
http://open.salon.com/blog/jimmymac1025/2010/03/20/back_to_court
Me, I think I"m going to go take an old lady's nap to reforge for the next section and try to ignore that stupid voice in my head that keeps repeating: Did you know that 25% of those with bipolar commit suicide? Jayyyy---Sus!
You cracked me up with the side bar about your wife offering you some afternoon delight and you chose an AA meeting instead! You have just elevated AA to a whole new level!!!
Hang in there!
This is good writing, Jimmy, really good. The flat, emotionless tone only serves to intensify the feeling of foreboding, of dread. We try to pretend it's not there, act like we're getting on with our lives, but...
~R~
You're doing a good job, man.
Lea--A bit more suspense than I'd care for, that's for sure, but, who knows, we may still see a happy ending.
Patie--I take lots of naps. They work for me. And I just ignore the stats I don't like. Does it really matter if I acknowledge such things?
Stim--The love is still there, stim. But I put on my armor everyday.
mypsyche--I have plenty of ways of lifting my spirits. I think writing about it help me understand what it is that I just saw, or experienced. Sometimes it passes in a blur and I'm not sure I can bring myself to believe what just happened unless I draw a picture of it.
Daniel--Thank you. Maybe it's bleakest before the dawn.
Cathy--Kind of surprised myself with that decision. Thanks for checking in.
mynameise--Thank you for your kind thoughts. I haven't lost hope.
Unbreakable--I think it's a coping mechanism, honestly. I know what I'm dealing with and getting upset simply doesn't do any good. I need to think and I don't do that very well when I'm pissed. My thinking may not help Rose, in the long run, but it keeps me from making it worse.
BillS--Thank you.
cartouche--The comment made plenty of sense. Too many parents go down the rabbit hole with their kids. We did it for a while and benefited from family therapy. First thing many parents do is blame each other and the first thing any decent therapist will tell 'em is to knock it off.
Hells Bells--Could be, but I think there are enough of them out there already. I'd like to write about other stuff for a while.
sophieh--Thank you.
Gotta love 1977 Dead. Eyes of the World from DP3 is transcendent. Hope that helped. And I hope you got those ribs.
Take care buddy.
Monte
If I am going to be stuck in traffic for a while, nothing makes me forget about time better than the Dead. I can get lost in it. Turns out I ordered pizza, but it did the job.
Bellwether--Thank you for your very gracious comment. There is great beauty and peace in acceptance, and I think it is important to convey that in this story. I learn to use my fear to bring me closer to my Higher Power, to become more dependent, more trusting. It's the only way I can function. I know a lot of parents who can't seem to get this and I watch them get sicker year after year. It doesn't have to be that way.
scupper--When I started to learn about this, I envisioned myself as an emergency room doc. They have to operate with a clinical detachment. The patient isn't served when a doctor screams, "Holyshit why did that happen? That wasn't supposed to happen." He has to figure out how to trust himself amid chaos, and to not waste time second-guessing.
Monte--Thank you. We both know many have it worse, and I try to keep that in mind. Think there aren't soldiers overseas with kids who need them? And what about the countless kids who never so much as see a psychiatrist, much less a treatment center or therapist, and whose parents are either disinterested or too overwhelmed to give the kid the attention she needs. There is a lot of suffering out there. I think what throws us is the expectation that shit like this only happens other people.
I had an epiphany long ago, given me by a dead guy. His son said it, actually, in the eulogy. The friend's youngest had Downs Syndrome. He told the other family members that of all the people in the world, "God chose us to raise this child."
If God thinks I am the best-equipped person in the world to be this girl's father, then who am I to argue?
RATED
I remember those phone calls, and finally turning my back towards his life choices, hoping for the best. It can still happen for her, I hope she has that defining moment in her life basically shit or get off the pot. I hope it is soon.
But good for you, your wife and you have done what you can, that is all you can do. It is up to her now.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.
and I don't know how you can politely handle the bullshit that is OS in full monkey house uproar when you've got a kid sick with the same shit at home.
I'd be in perpetual f'you mode
All my best to you and Rose, you are good parents.
~Rated.
Tom--I think we all get our "growth opportunities" in one form or another. I'm sure you've had yours.
Lunchlady--So grateful you read and respond. Hard to imagine good news when you are in the middle of this, but I've culled the wisdom and hope of others who have been there. Folks like you helped me get on a better path through all this. Much appreciated.
Smithery--Thank you.
Mary--Touched and honored. Thank you.
Spudman--Thanks so much. Got a phone call this morning. She's been there a week, longer than I thought she would last. Her tone was very encouraging. Only paid a week rent (cash only) and have to go back today. She called and said there was a sobriety book for women that my sister had given her. She really liked it and could I bring it for her.
Strawberry---Thanks for stopping by.
But ... choosing a meeting over some afternoon delight - that's strange, man! And did you say you then picked pizza instead of ribs? Shaking my head, totally baffled ;)
R